Things that Happen
by Akiko Fujishima
Summary: Freshmen year goes as usual. Bullies bother everyone. Naruto is the annoying blond dobe and Sasuke is still the smug obnoxious bastard he's always been. Every little thing sticks to the routine-- wait. Gaara is WHAT? SasuNaru/NaruSasu
1. Chapter 1

**Things that Happen**

As always, I hate my title. If someone has a better idea, Tell me.

Pairing: NaruSasu/Sasunaru (I like both)

[I'm still learning English. Sorry for any mistake. Don't hesitate to tell me. I want to learn]

I wanted to start it with them still not being quite friends not quite foes to develop their character more (Did I write that right?), so to make them more, I dunno, teenage-like... I hope it worked x3. Also, they live in Japan, so everything is supposed to go according that. Well, that's all.

Before I forget, I don't own them (Why God, why?!) and this is a yaoi fic. So, if you think this offends you, just don't read it- as simple as that.

* * *

--Ch. 1— Who's Gaara?

"Stupid homophobic bastards…"he mumbled to no one.

Angrily he clenched the little piece of paper in his fist. He closed his locker releasing all his frustration on the rectangular door. The noise of metal clashing echoed trough the almost empty hallway. The few people in his surroundings started to whisper. The paper was still in his hand.

One would think that they who would had more stuffs to do instead of writing this pathetic misspelled messages. Well, it looked like they hadn't. They must have pretty boring lives, right?

But, this was not something new. Since he started high school they were bothering him—well, bothering everyone, really. The usual lot that tasted and enjoyed someone else's embarrassment and humiliation as it were the most scrumptious delicacy, moved by no perceptible reason.

Anyway, this time was different. Shikamaru had warned the blond about this. The reason for this was far and reasonably justified in their or any student's eyes. Despite it annoyed him horribly, it was justified for him, because, they were _supposed _to dislike it. They were expected to reject it and to bother him; it was their obligation, never an option.

The reason for all of this was one sole person –well, it actually was more the contact he had made with him the last week than him, the human being…Whatever, it was the same-

The boy that had a crazy fan club and was adored by no less than the 90% of the girls in the school, including female teachers, the nurse and the ladies that served lunch-- It was almost ridiculous how they had him on a pedestal. And the more ironic thing was that he was unaware of their existence, or so he showed. No one had seen him making any effort to share and socialize with them. In fact, he couldn't care less.

Naruto shook his blond head and started walking to art.

The reason for all of this was Uchiha Sasuke… and those strange rumors about him that were spreading among the school body. He had become aware of them when it was too late:

He had been sitting happily in the back of the class in his usual spot, looking out of the window, feeling his frequent drowsiness while their teacher, waving her arms excitedly all over the Periodic Table of Elements, talked of the marvelous and fantastic properties of nature and elementary particles (She was a naturist and a fanatic lover of anything that was green; and it gained more points if it had leaves –or had an ornament shaped as one-), as she always did.

Every little thing until this point of the day was okay with Naruto, although he wasn't bothering himself to even share 10% of his attention capacity towards the woman speaking –everything was sticking to the routine, included his near to nothing understanding of the topic. Why was this usual? Because he never truly liked Chemistry, he found it boring. Also, because he couldn't care less about Chemical Reaction and the only utility that had all the substances written in the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, according to his personal point of view, was when he'd open the newspaper some random day and decided to complete the daily crossword puzzle (what he'd never complete and he would go on to the two Sudoku underneath it, which he will left incomplete as well) and it would ask about the Chemical symbol of Sodium or some other substance and nothing else.

He gave a quick glance to the whiteboard out of curiosity and pure boredom. Anon he wished he hadn't. The teacher had her jolly-despite-everything eyes focused on him. Out of instincts, he stiffened in his seat and his palms sweated due to the uneasiness that roamed in the bottom of his stomach. She was going to ask him something… Crap! What the hell had she said…?!

"Naruto-kun" she uttered with her kind and merry voice, forcing the fear to share the space with some unavoidable regret "Tell me-- What do you think?" He had no idea.

"Eh…" was his smart reply. His brain cells frenetically moved in search for any hint that may give them a clue of what she was referring of "Er… I--" their search had no results.

"Calm down, sweetheart" she stated looking at him gently, unconsciously moving closer to him "I won't eat you, whatever you say… I just want to know your opinion" she had noticed his expression of… discomfort.

"Hum, well," he had to answer something. He stared at the table as it held the answers for all questions. After a while (5 seconds) he found two safe phrases: 'I like it' or 'I don't like it'. The teacher had said 'Know your opinion', right? So he had reduced his possible answers to two… Now he had fifty percent chance to say the correct one. He defined himself as a positive person, so he decided to bet everything on the positive one and hope it would fit. What an intelligent method, right? He mentally kicked himself.

"Hum…I like it?" hesitantly he allowed his mouth pronounce the words, them sounding more like a question rather that an answer.

"So, you _like _Global Warming, Naruto …?" she questioned doubtful, avoiding any intent of hiding her disbelieve. It was then when he realized the twenty or more pair of eyes fixed on him, twenty or more faces smirking, giggling, frowning, hiding their laughs…

"No- I meant" he tried to dominate his stuttering "I-I… Er"

"I seems like someone has not been paying attention…" she walked away from him as she spoke. Her singsong voice reminding everyone that she liked that, because it hadn't been a coincidence that she had asked the only student that wouldn't be able to answer- she wasn't a sadist though, she told herself. Naruto's scowl cried to the world he thought otherwise. Her factions softened, and implied sigh in her gaze and she continued "I though we had an agreement, Naruto …"

"…?" His head tilted a bit to the left and his expression had calmed a little too. Ah, the famous agreement. The agreement… What agreement?

She stood quietly waiting hopefully with patience. The blond had a blank expression.

"The one that was a about your grades and **you** compromised in paying attention…" she gave him the obvious hints.

However, it was impossible for him to remember the little promise they had made within a month ago. Hopeless now, she sighted and continued talking.

"Well, as I can see you're pretty interested on the subject, it will be **your** topic for the next project that we are starting the next hour" the whole class moaned "No moaning. It is in pairs –I'll pick them and no, I don't want to hear your complaints." She knew teenagers to well to trust them. In works like this there were always lazy kids that took advantage of their more diligent peers "You have to finish it and bring to me the reports on Tuesday 24th…" she wrote the date on the whiteboard and started naming the groups. And then, she said it. The feared words left the mouth of the teacher, slowly,"... Misaki and Hyuuga will have to work about Alternative power sources. Naruto-kun, with the Global Warming project" she offered him a beaming smile. He gave a strained smirk in response "... Hum. You will be paired up with Uchiha. Nobura will..."

His mind froze. Did he heard right? Uchiha? **The** Uchiha Sasuke...? That smug obnoxious bastard? Hell no…!

It was also part of the school's common knowledge the rivalry Naruto felt towards Sasuke. No one was completely sure why the tanned blond had the odd obsession of surpassing the raven so passionately… The beginnings where deeply buried in their Junior High school memories, when they met. No one understood and most of them though it was a huge waste of time. Most of them thought "it is impossible for him to even reach half of his greatness" (quoted from the pink-haired co-president of Sasuke's weird stalking fan club)

"What..?!" he jumped of his seat almost involuntarily and his voice was more loud that what he desired, and the tone a bit too high too.

Some people in the classroom felt free to let little laughs escape their lips.

"Too bad, Naruto"

"You really have bad luck..."

"Aww- I wanted to be with Sasuke…"

"Poor Sasuke-kun! He was paired up with Naruto!"

"Na- Naruto-kun..."

"Is there any problem with your _partne_r for the project, Uzumaki-kun?" Naruto shuddered at the word _partner_. Behind her desk, she looked directly at him. She smiled happily, an odd sparkle shinning in her eyes… She put them together and had the bravery of smiling at him as she said it! "If there's any problem, I beg you to wait until I finish naming all the pairs and then you can come to my desk and explain to me what is it, understood?"

Huffing, he let all his weight fall on the small chair. The day had become a torture...

---

"Sensei, I can't be with Sasuke!" he growled desperately to the woman in front of him "Sensei, you **know** that...! I can't work with him! He just can't cooperate!"

"Yes, I know-..." she replied softly, taking off her glasses and leaving them on the wooden counter.

"Then, **why**?" he asked exasperated, emphasizing his question moving his arms. Trying to understand her reasons for doing this to him was harder that what he had supposed "Don't you remember our last project?!"

"Yes, I know your terms with each other are far from good, but" she paused, the smile had faded away. And she glared directly into his azure eyeballs "But, you must think smartly, Uzumaki..."

"Huh?" he was startled by the slightly harsh tone with his last name had been pronounced.

"Uchiha has the best grades in my class..." she explained. Her gaze wondered freely throughout the classroom "He probably will work hard and have a good grade this time too... I think a good grade will help you a lot since, eh, your last one..." she made a strange expression of pain.

Well, he had to admit that he had had such a low mark last time, that the word was not enough to describe his lack of performance and knowledge; he had fallen asleep in the middle of the exam and had woken up when there were only five minutes left; Panic took over him and, after cleaning as best as he could the little stains of droll over the paper, he attempted to write down some coherent lines on some of the questions -half or more of his brain still snoozing- on the lasting 3 minutes. The results were to be expected. "It cost me a lot of work to give you some justified point and make your score over 10*..."

"But..." he sighted utterly defeated "Fine, I get it"

"Plus, I think he could teach you some useful things about Global warming..." she added playfully "He knows a lot, Naruto. Don't waste this chance..."

" 'kay, I won't sensei..."

There was another more reason for it. The boy turned intending to walk back to his seat and her lips curved in an unnoticed grin. She had to put them together. Rivalry was the key. This way, doubtlessly Naruto would actually put some effort in the project—god, she was a teen-psychology master. She hadn't gone to university and done that God damned PhD for fun.

Hesitantly, the blond side-looked to the reason of all his stress and frustration -being also the reason for his marvelous improvement in Math lately- sitting vaingloriously in the first line as usual, reading a book oblivious to the world around him, like the smug obnoxious bastard he was.

He slowly approached him, waiting for the worst. But, despite everything, the sooner they started the better. That meant it would be over sooner as well.

*x*

The clouds moved at a snail's pace in front of the eyes of the teen looking at them. The temperature was nice and a small breeze was caressing his hair. The day had been peaceful and he was falling slowly into a pleasant slumber propped in a tree, when two noisy boys came to shatter his little bubble.

It was lunchtime anyway and they always ate together. Unwillingly, he stood up to a sitting position and grabbed the sandwich Kiba was offering: tuna with mayonnaise, perfect. He inspected the content closely…The boy huffed. He told Kiba he liked it without tomatoes. He said nothing though; it wasn't like him to argue. Besides, he was going to eat it despite it… and it wasn't like Kiba to hear him or anyone's demands.

"…and, che'. I couldn't think of anything…" the noisy blond yelled with half of his meal stuffed in his mouth. Surprisingly enough, he swallowed effortlessly and continued talking "and I felt so guilty, y' know?"

"Now you care about Chemistry, Naruto?" he mocked the blond. When he said the words, a broad smile spread across his face, making the two red tattoos under his eyes to move slightly upwards "Wow, that's so responsible of you…" sarcasm tinged his voice.

"Look who's talking… You have used the excuse 'My dog ate my homework' like a thousand times…" Naruto retorted and they chuckled at accord dumbly, Kiba more mischievously. Shikamaru silently sat next to them supported by his tree –it was a cherry tree, the last one in full blossom in the entire campus-, hearing the chitchat halfway, still gazing at the clouds. Naruto bit his sandwich again "Well, yeah…and I felt bad for her. I mean… Why in the specific class that I don't care about there is a teacher that truly gives a damn about me?"

"Yeah, that _really_ sucks…" sarcasm once more, present in his tone.

"Shut up, Kiba…" the blue eyed boy said a little annoyed. He sighed an rested his back on the grass, arms folded, hands under his head and legs crossed " And that was not the worse…Now I have a stupid project about global warming and guess who is my partner…"

"Hinata…?"

"Nope"

"Sakura..?"

"No, baka!" he exclaimed as he had heard the most idiotic thing on earth. If he had been paired with Sakura Haruno he would have been jumping, irradiating joy—not sulking and sinking in frustration "I was paired with _Sasuke_…"

"Again? Why that always happens to you?" he exclaimed, a single eyebrow ascended, now feeling a little sympathetic for the blond. He didn't like the raven much either.

"Hn… troublesome" Shikamaru pronounced his firsts words since the other's arrival.

"Huh? Why?" Naruto asked surprised.

"Well… I heard something weird abot Uchiha earlier- is not like I believe it…" two pair of eyes glanced at him. The obvious curiosity illustrated that their interest was far away from hearing Shikamaru's opinion, the wanted juicy gossip, damn it--! He breathed deeply and started to tell what he heard some hours before "I was taking my math book in the morning, when a group of three girls gossiping loudly stood next to me… I wasn't trying to hear them, but they were almost yelling it –typical of them…"

_I was struggling with some textbooks to make them fit in my locker when they started to whisper—But as I said, I'm not sure they understand the meaning of the word 'whisper', really. They moved closer to where I was standing. I think they didn't notice that I could hear –wanting or not- every word said._

_I can't remember well, but I think that Ino was there… and maybe Hinata too. About the other one, I've never met her before that._

"…_and you won't believe what she told me!" scream-muttered Ino, waving her hair from left to right, whipping my face with it. Yes, they were that close._

"_Hum, what did she tell you?" shyly asked Hinata._

"_Yeah, tell us!" the unknown girl's screech pierced my ears and gave me a damn high-quality headache._

"_Well, you guys know that Sasuke always eats alone or surrounded by a bunch of girls, right?" the other two nodded. Then I though, why Ino was talking like she wasn't part of the 'bunch of girls' who stalked Uchiha daily at lunch… She continued, if possible, louder "Yesterday, Ten-ten was crossing the yard, going to the other building and saw Sasuke eating lunch in that spot behind the gym, where he always eats… and he wasn't alone"_

"_Who was with him?" I could sense the frenetic fan-girly squeal of the girl was restraining as if Sasuke was her favourite topic._

"_He was having lunch with that creepy read headed guy, Gaara…" her eyes shined with morbid delight "Then, when Sakura asked him about it he said they were only friends; she believed him, but I'm not that naïve..."_

_Hinata and the other gasped in surprised like they had heard that she had a bomb in her bag._

"_And you remember when Gaara presented himself the first day, right?" she moved her index finger around, the other two hypnotized by it "Now, everyone says they are more than 'friends', you know what I mean?"_

"…I thought that it was ridiculous, but that rumor seems to be spreading pretty fast… People love that kind of stuff" he stopped and gave a quick glance at his buddies. One, jaw dropped, filled with absolute awe. The blond one had raised his golden eyebrows a bit, in order to make more room to his now full open eyes, like two white cerulean centered dishes.

"So, you mean he's is- He is like…?" Kiba left his unfinished question floated in the air. There was no need to do so.

"So the rumors say…" Shikamaru shrugged nonchalantly.

"Uh…" Kiba side looked at his blond comrade "Sorry Naruto, but I won't be hanging out, talking or sitting next to or even looking at you for a while… Naruto?"

The other two watched the alluded expectantly. He had switched his last expression for a new one. He seemed to be in a deep state of concentration. His golden brows formed a frown and he slowly closed his eyes. Shikamaru and Kiba waited. Finally, they focused their attention back to their pal when his lips parted.

"Hum… I didn't know Hinata liked to gossip…"

If Kiba had been an anime character, he would've fallen to the floor.

"I don't know why I even bother to worry…" Shikamaru breathed out and inhaled profoundly. After that, he turned his gaze to the puffy clouds still moving and put his hands in his pockets, he had no intention of continuing listening or speaking. Maybe he'd take a quick nap.

Kiba, in the other hand, felt himself invaded by two different emotions. The first one being incredulity. The next one- well, it could be not counted as an emotion, really. The next was the sudden and unstoppable urge to…er, shout.

"What!? Are you really a--… that dense?" He restrained himself of saying fucking dobe. He was trying to improve his vocabulary –his mom's fault!- and his treatment towards Naruto; Even though the blonde could be a dummy from time to time, he had showed to be quite the sensitive kind; the sensitive and vengeful kind. Bad memories…

"Hey! Don't call me that!" Naruto curled up and hugged his knees

"But, really- gosh…!" his hand slapped one of his tattooed cheeks "You don't get it?!"

"But--… huh?" his mind skipped the last question. Had he really heard Kiba say 'gosh'? It was normal to hear him swear and curse… but, 'gosh'? Really- "Ouch" A pair of fingers pinched his face. An immediate hit was enough to free his nose. He hurried to attend the harmed area.

"Don't you remember what Gaara _did_ in the first day?"

"Gaara?" blue eyes closed. A little meditative scowl adorned his features "Who's Gaara?"

"…"

Kiba cared about his blond friend and accepted him by who he was and… all of that stuff best buddies (or whatever) did. So, he had accepted long ago, when they became friends, that Naruto was none the wisest. However, this was too much. "Fuck, I can't do this…" muttering he stood up, the grass stuck to his pants and he brushed it off. "I beg you, Shikamaru… Explain it to him" and as this –sandwich in hand- he left.

The two boys remained in silence. Some petals descend from the tree as they renewed their conversation.

"Che' I don't know why he was so pissed…" Naruto pouted angrily at the brushes in front of them "It's not my fault if I can't remember that guy…"

"I feel a little sympathetic for the Chemistry teacher… Well, it's not like Kiba is the more patient guy around" murmuring to himself, Shikamaru turned to face the blond "You really don't remember who Gaara is?"

"Nope…"

"Well, Gaara is that scary red-headed guy who roams always next to the candy store…"he started to explain. Naruto's expression squealed him on; he was still confused.

"Huh--…"

"The guy with no brows and wears mascara"

"Ah?! That guy?!" Naruto's squeak made some people turn around, staring. He continued talking; now lower "The one who said he was-..? Him? Dude, really?"

"Yep…" Shikamaru rested his back again in his cherry tree and closed his eyes.

"And they think **they** are_--_?" Shikamaru nodded "That is so weird…! I mean, not only the weird 'more than friends' stuff… I can't even picture them together" he noted the blond looked deeply disturb, perhaps some of Kiba's homophobic stupidity had gotten onto him too. But he understood. Sasuke had always been close to Naruto; it was really weird "I can't believe I just got paired up with him- I want to die! No, calm down- Those rumors are so not true, I know they're not!"

"Believe them or not, I just told you what I heard…"

"No… I don't think it's true" exasperated, he looked away "They must be only friends, I'm sure…"

"I can't tell…" Shikamaru ate the last piece of his food "Well, I'm leaving now… I have to talk to Iruka-sensei about something. See you later" he waved at the blond and started walking away. For a moment, he hesitated. Then, he turned back to add, "Naruto, perhaps you're right and that's not true but— you know what means that he is friend of someone like Gaara, right?"

"Yeah, I know…" he tried to keep his tone even. It was just that- everything was too odd.

"Naruto, are you okay?"

A deep frown crossed the blonde's features. His eyes were lost into his thoughts. But, Shikamaru's words reached him and he snapped out of his engrossment.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" his usual grin looked off.

It was too not credible.

Shikamaru nodded and said nothing. Naruto sat still in his place, hearing the brunette's footsteps disappear. The wind blew again and the leaves flowers attached to the tree clung to the branches desperately, making a soft murmur. Some failed and fell next to the blond.

Naruto Uzumaki was what people called a stubborn person mixed with simple-minded thoughts –a total annoyance; or what in young pure and normal child or teen minds was named as blockhead, dumb, idiot, loser, moron, dull, freak, feebleminded (Ino gave him that one to everyone's amazement) and Sasuke's favorites, dobe and Usuratonkachi… Those stuck in everyone's vocabulary after the first day of middle school, when the beloved Uchiha said (cried it out loud, actually) in front of the whole class –the teacher wasn't present in that moment. Sweet memories, really. Independent of the continuous insults each day thrown between them, those were the good old days. As time passed, they were dragged more and more into adolescence and its charms like quick mood swings, clumsiness and of course, irritability. The fights started by the slightest brush and the yelling began, suddenly transformed into high-pitched screams, and a bit of hateful stares and maybe a little crying. Some punches as well.

During the second term in their second year of middle school, before Christmas break, something happened. The few people who were stupidly there witnessed the weirdest of things. For them, it seemed a regular fight but, the strange thing was, after it ended, Sasuke and Naruto stopped talking, not even a single glance to the other, no more smirks or anything, just like that. It didn't even involved unusually loud shouts –In fact, they'd been lower, almost whispers at some point. Not even a little punch, some said surprised and others disappointed. So, as quick as they appeared, they were gone. It was even scary.

When they started senior year, the heavy and tensed atmosphere had lifted. Still, there was no interaction apart from Naruto trying to be better than Sasuke. That one never extinguished. Gradually –and forcefully too-, their old relationship was re-established for the raven had to help Naruto often in some classes (like math and equations); all the credit was for their evil teachers though, thank you very much and soon, the old quarrelling was back too and their terms were normal again, as normal as they could be.

Things remained that way after they graduated and they entered freshman year at high school, one and a half months ago. But somehow, it felt different from before, like they had formed a bond and, perhaps, deep down, they cared a little about each other… or maybe it was just his imagination.

Anyhow, Shikamaru and Kiba had talked like the suggestions were true. Or at least like they believed the raven was- No, it wasn't true. Sasuke was fine… He knew him more that many people. Although, you can never truly know someone, even yourself, can't you?

His stomach grumbled and remembered him his still not satisfied hunger. Sluggishly, the sandwich made its way to his mouth. Sasuke… he knew the gossips were false, he was sure. But-

'_-you know what means that he is friend of someone like Gaara, right?'_

-but, what about that? He had to be honest; He couldn't assure it was a lie.

He bit the sandwich again. His face emerged and highlighted between the others thoughts, Sasuke's face. Then, he remembered. Remembered all those years and how they were… The ordeal they meant for him; unwanted queries surfaced in his mind too: Was he concerned about that bastard? Why would he? He hated him, didn't he? Was he _worried_?

Eew, no. That was absolutely and completely impossible. No doubt.

The last bite was dragged to his lips. However, on the other hand, maybe **that **was true. Sasuke always seemed as good material for that after all.

And now, three days had passed since that day. The stupid paper fell harshly into the garbage can, severely wrinkled.

Sasuke was hanging out with Gaara… and that creepy guy truthfully was** one**. If Gaara was one, Sasuke unavoidable was one too.

That was the meaning of all this shit. The stupid notes, cruel nicknames, the soon coming threatening…

Gaara was one so all the student's minds, drove by the radical High school logic and prejudice, thought Sasuke was too. And now, that he was _talking_ to Sasuke…

The **real** meaning for all that was Gaara… and the fact he was homosexual.

That made him one of them as well—Damn High School and your merciless judgment.

--End Ch.1—

* * *

* It goes according to the Japanese educational system. I made some research and I think their top grade is a 100. From this, I guessed getting something below ten is really, really bad.

So, what do you think? I kind of remade it like five times or more.

This is my first SasuNaru/NaruSasu fic, so I'm quite proud of myself, for finishing it =3. But, please review... even if you only say 'liked it' or 'hated it' or 'LOL' or whatever.

Anyway, thanks for reading it. Hope you'll read ch. 2 as well.

Bye-bee!

Fujishima A.


	2. Chapter 2

--Ch. 2— Notebook

**Author's random comments:** I had a hard time to finish properly this one. It was hard to not repeat all the time the same words and I hated the ending, so I kind of redid it almost four times. The hardest part was to keep in short –thing I couldn't quite do- and stop adding to many not important details.

I don't know if anyone notices, but it abused of the use of the boy's names. Also, I overdid it with the thesaurus dictionary. Sorry =3

By the way, thanks for the reviews. You're awesome!

One week had passed and he merely opened his eyes when he stumbled to the bathroom. He muttered a soft moan, spitting little bubbles of toothpaste as an excuse from a 'morning, dad' when his father passed by the doorframe.

He was starting the second week, day one of the project; two weeks and 6 days left to finish and that subject never left his head during the last seven days.

But now, it was a new week. The last one had been horrible but this was a new start. He turned on the hot water and entered the shower.

Now that he was a lot more positive, he saw everything from a new perspective. It hadn't been as terrible as he though, the threatening he meant. He'd received only five stupid notes, one cruel nickname -what he couldn't remember- and so far, no bullies at all… (Except from that guy during lunch, Naruto had to kick his ass. He had to go to the principal's office, though; yet it was worth the detention) Maybe, he had overreacted.

However, this whole new joy was not enough to distract him from that matter. He had watched him closely -not that he wanted, Sasuke'd forced him to eat lunch with him three times- and he'd noticed Sasuke was very-- girly at some stuff and he always sat with his legs crossed, like girls did! Also, he moved his left hand everywhere when he tried to explain something. Right there, Naruto'd started to freak out, but just a bit. His right eye hadn't twitched at all and he never screamed 'Oh my f****** god! What the hell is that!' pointing crazily. Later on, he decided it was wrong to discriminate him because he could be-- y' know, that. Then, he managed to relax a little more. But still…

The stairs creaked under his feet. He made it unharmed to the kitchen table despite his eyes were half open and his brain was half working. He smiled sleepily at his dad who had left a red bowl, a spoon, milk and the cereal box in front of him. The scent of toasts woke him fully.

He bit the toast and poured milk in the bowl. The color of the milk was so white, so white and pale like Sasuke's skin… How could he be like that and live in this city?

Thanks to those forced lunches he had with Sasuke –to the project benefit; though he didn't think they were that late… But Sasuke likes to exaggerate- he got to meet Gaara. He discovered that the scary brow-less red-headed guy was a lot more that that. He was cool… Naruto thought he still was really scary, yet he was acquainted with him now. However, he'd be scared to death if he opened his closet door someday and found Gaara inside. Gaara, in his closet-- weird though. Subject change.

And at the other side of the table, there had been Sasuke, reminding him the boring project. When they started working he had been a pain in the ass. But after most of the big fights and the friction were over, they were capable to do some teamwork. He still did not like Sasuke, though. His arrogant aura remained, surrounding everything about him… His smirks, his unwanted-answers-for-an-unasked-question, when he called Naruto dobe or usuratonkachi, his glances… everything. But at least, they could talk to each other without starting world war III –or it was IV?

The last spoonful of milky cereal entered his mouth. The bowl was empty and the toast had long ago disappeared.

Perhaps, they could be friends- maybe, somewhere in the near future. He scratched the bottom of the bowl with the spoon. His elbow rested on the wooden table, his head laid on his fist. Perhaps, all those years of quarrel and competitive struggle made people care about the other. Also, Sasuke was a tolerable guy without that 'I'm better that you, so I ignore you' attitude.

The bowl was in the sink, schoolbag on his back- the blue textbook for the project and the colored paper were in. Good. Sasuke'd kill him if he forgot those-, cell phone on his pocket and bike under him. The blond only checked the time before leaving. He rushed to school as he noted he had sparse seven minutes and a half to be sited in his desk.

The wind roared in his ears and the sunshine made his golden locks twinkle.

*x*

He smirked proudly. He had made it. He had covered the distance between his house and the school in record time, had gone through the main gate where was the bitter teacher who waited late student to send them to detention and had some additional time to spare and get some water- if his pants weren't a hint, he had rushed at the top speed his old bike could bear; he was tired and needed to hydrate his body.

"Yo, Naruto..."

"Ohayou, Shikamaru…" he walked towards him when he saw a familiar face, "Hi, Kiba!" the mentioned frowned. His pace didn't slow at the sound of his name. He even walked with more hurry. Naruto's puzzled eyes followed him until he vanished in the crowd "What's wrong with him? Wasn't he supposed to be talking to me again?"

"Yeah, but-" he scratched the back of his head idly. He sensed the blonde's annoyance as clear as- It really didn't mattered. The point was that Kiba was acting stupidly and his stupid slightly homophobic behavior was becoming a drag. And the worst was he continued stupidly denying it… Stupid inu-boy "The thing is, a little earlier, Chouji was nagging him and- well, you know how sensitive he gets when someone pronounces the G word nearby his name…"

"And he dares to call me Baka…" his snort was light "He's lucky that I forgave him for ignoring me— that I forgave such betrayal and he…" irritation flooded from his mouth- damn it! That day was though as a good one; Leave it to Kiba to ruin it with his foolish way of being… "Whatever, tell Kiba that he's stupid for me, ok?"

"Yeah, why not…" Shikamaru shrugged and followed.

After some meters, and with every step, his anger was soothed. Yeah, Kiba was an asshole sometimes—but they knew each other too long and too well to stay pissed. Besides, it would be over by lunch.

"Hum, Naruto" both teens reached Naruto's locker "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah…" Naruto struggled with crumbling notebooks and glanced at him.

"Well, it's kind of dumb…" he fell into his old habit. His hand moved unnoticed by its owner towards the back of his head. "Do you remember when I told you and Kiba about that gossip?"

"Yeah…" he put his Chemistry and Math book on his bag and travelled to the bathroom- he was still thirsty. Shikamaru followed "I remember I wanted to die the next class when Sasuke's elbow brushed my ear… Why?"

He took a moment to reconsider.

"Nah, It's not important…" the teen closed his eyes a bit, eyes looking down to the floor.

"Uh… okay"

Their walking was resumed as well as Naruto's blabber. He listened halfway, resignedly. It was like the blonde to smile, irradiating joy and simply say 'I'm okay…' no matter how much he showed the opposite. It really was hopeless to ask.

TToTT

Perhaps, they could be friends, somewhere in the nearby future… Had he said that?

Deeply black eyes showed to him his own reflection when the distance between them was over the word inappropriate long ago. They were so close— Naruto's muscles tensed when he was prepared to jump over him.

Had he said they could be _friends?_ Well—scratch that stupid sentence, clutch the paper until there's only a tiny ball, set it on fire and throw the ashes to the sea! That was never, _ever_ going to happen! If those words were standing in a point of the earth, they would be located in the undoubted opposite pole.

"Moron, How could you forget it?!" angered words left his mouth and he wasn't sitting anymore, like he was supposed to.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Naruto said to him for the tenth time within the class. His eyes followed the dark haired picture while it sat again. The textbook wasn't blue after all.

Surrounding the corner were both boys were working -and now struggling, again- was the common murmur of concentrated students with the eventual louder scream that died before someone would be bothered. The people around them didn't even offered a little glance this time, only the teacher did- a small two seconds long peer to assure they were not murdering each other; just a small sigh of resignation and nothing more from their classmates. After the four Chemistry classes they had swallow last week and the 'ten minutes of recess between screaming' fights -they were extremely constant- they were habituated to the continuous noise and the classroom almost felt empty without their voices clashing, hushed first and then, shameless screeches. It felt like home-

"You're sorry, huh? Without that damn textbook we can't continue working, usuratonkachi!" the eyes of their classmates were fixed on their own functions.

"Well, I'm not a little perfect bastard like **you**, Sasuke!" tanned palms over the table, sky blue eyes narrowing, teeth and fist tightening and the whole class unaware. "I'm a **normal **person! I make mistakes, I forget things!"

"Yeah, normal, he says" he rustled the papers over the table while his hand pushed some black locks blocking his view behind his ear.

Naruto just silently watched his 'partner' lower his gaze to read some random text, completely ignoring him. He didn't budge a bit but he seemed just about to growl, though.

"I should have known you would forget it…" Sasuke whispered to himself and the blonde could hear it pretty clearly. Sky blue eyes narrowed some more and tanned knuckles were pale… A slight laugh could be heard outside the corner "I should've known you would forget the only damn important thing…! You recalled bringing the stupid and useless colored paper but not the only important thing, the damn te-"

Oh, the power of routine. Nonetheless, it was understandable. No one was looking. No eyes were spying. The entire class was immersed in the slightly grey and safe lethargy everyday custom meant. It would explain why no one considered it coming, no one was watching and no one was there to stop it.

A loud crash and the chair was on the floor, Sasuke beside the chair. He remained there, caressing his cheek, stunned and blood dripping from his face. Across the shared table, there was Naruto standing and his fist rose to a shoulder level.

"It took me AGES to find the stupid colored paper you wanted, asshole!"

The class fell deadly silent. Twenty or more pair of eyes were wide open, looking staggered –Did you hear that sound? That was routine breaking… or a body crashing into the floor, whatever- but now, they were drowning in a different mental state, the one sudden astonishment gave you and your thoughts seemed to have frozen and your brain cells wouldn't run.

This would explain again why everyone continued sitting stationary behind their desks.

Naruto looked -scorn leaking of his eyes- at Sasuke, who returned a poisoned stare. His nose bled a bit leaving a cherry red strand on his pale skin while a hideous lump was appearing under his left eye, red and slightly blue on the centre.

The eye contact was broken by Naruto; he looked away, at the window. His fingers fidgeted with the air, uncomfortably. Was he feeling a little resentful? Then, a soft noise and he turned his face just in time to see; a dark blur moving and—

His knee made a sickening crack when Sasuke kicked him.

Naruto fell hard against the floor. The raven, victoriously, observed his partner collapse. He curled up and grabbed his leg uttering various curses under his breath.

Naruto's words where the only sound that ripped the unbounded and cold silence.

"FUCK!" a trembling hand grasped the edge of the counter lifting the blond. His back was still mid-curled and his wounded extremity struggled intending to support him up "I'm going to kill you!"

The reverie covering the class broke. As Naruto attempted to tackle Sasuke, a strong hand impeded it because this was going too far and it had to end right now or they'll have one classmate less. The teacher stormed towards the corner, her high heels clattered on the floor. Some boys held the raven down, articulating soothing word so he would not free himself and attack the blonde. Alike words where whispered in his ears, not very successfully. He wasn't listening.

"Why did you kick me, bastard?!" he shove one of his hands, but someone stamped it to the floor before the bat of an eyelash.

"Uzumaki-kun, please--" a simple warning from the teacher, that should've halted any murderous intent from both teens, except this time it wasn't sufficient.

"_You _hit me first… or have you already forgotten?"

"Uchiha-kun, stop it."

"Shut up! You deserved it!" he winced as his leg moved slightly forward "I think you broke it…"

"Cry-baby"

"Boys, please…"

"What did you say?!"

"Stop it now--"

"What? Are you deaf now too, dobe?" a sarcastic smirk curved his lips. **That** damned smirk--!

"I'm going to fucking kill you!"

"**ENOUGH**!" the voice sounded raspy at the end of the scream and the students fell deadly silent again, all of them "I will not tolerate such outrageous behavior in **my **classroom! We're going to have a small talk with the headmistress!" she stared at her two students who suddenly seemed to have shrunk and were kneeled on the floor motionless "Move, now! Wait until your parents hear about this…"

After that, the boys had no other choice but to follow the angry woman- It would be plainly stupid to argue and get more trouble.

As he toddled, Naruto frowned. Sasuke stared blankly.

U="=

His eyes landed on the window, then on the flower pot full of orchids and later, on the little pink pencil case with Hello Kitty waving at him. He scowled.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the gentle movements of the school nurse. His shoe tapped impatiently the white linoleum at the beat of the wall clock. But, seriously- it had passed by now 10 minutes since she started… How much time someone needs to bandage one not necessarily broken knee?

"So…" out of Sasuke's visual range, _his_ voice left soft as a whisper, because in that horribly white room each noise echoed and sounded tenth times stronger "What do you think sensei?"

"Well," Sasuke moved his head to take a quick look, as he did the icepack stuck under his eye made a soft murmur of ice adjusting below plastic; it enabled him to appreciate how the nurse finished to immobilize Naruto's joint, finally "I can't say this for sure, but I don't think it's broken" Sasuke wasn't looking anymore, but he heard the blonde sigh with relief "But still I suggest you should go to the hospital… Tell your mom, okay?"

"Huh, yeah, sure…"

He heard the sound of a chair creaking; Naruto intended to stand up. Later on, the sound of a body diving heavily in the same chair; he got up, his leg failed bearing his weight and he was back when he started, sitting in the chair- how typical.

"No! Please, Uzumaki-kun, do not try to stand up…" she dashed towards him.

After Naruto's rant on how he was going to travel if he mustn't stand up and the nurse giving him a wheel chair, because they had not more crutches; past the moment when the lady offered Sasuke to push the blonde to their next destination and Naruto's second rant about how he could move it by himself, thank you and the awkward and silent walk together avoiding eye contact, they where finally there. The metal plaque read 'Principal's office'. Both of them hesitated. Sasuke reached the door and pushed the wood slowly.

Inside, there were three little chairs and, on the opposing side, there was a lady typing on an old computer. Naruto moved forward, his wheels creaking. In front of him, another door stood, the barricade the separated them from someone and his fate and it was slightly more frightening than the other door.

"Naruto-kun! Ohayou!" the secretary or so Sasuke guessed, adjusted her glasses and smiled at the blond.

"Hi, Aiko-chan… You missed me?" he watched Naruto wave back and approach the desk.

The young woman –she probably hadn't passed her thirties yet- huffed, sounding concerned but failed at suppressing a grin, such a familiar atmosphere between them –but the most odd detail was she wasn't surprised to see Naruto reach the desk in a wheel chair-, she replied softly "It's only been four days since the last time you were here, Naruto-kun…" she chuckled.

"Well, this time it wasn't my fault…"

"Yeah, of course…" she continued typing.

Meanwhile, Sasuke chose not to hear them because their little chat was becoming more annoying by each moment and was giving him a headache. He sat on one of the chairs, furthest as possible of them, next to the door (not the hated one) and wandered what'll happen now. This was his first time in the principal's office unlike that dobe who talked to the woman as they were lifetime best friends.

A bad muffled chuckled came from the secretary's direction and it made Sasuke's gaze turn and face the pair. Naruto chattered unbelievably calm. Sasuke, on the other hand, felt his fingers a little numb and awkward when he moved them. It wasn't like he was _concerned _or anything (He was not!) about the detention thing but- why was he so happy and all smiles right now? Wait—it wasn't like he felt out or something… (He really was not!) Suddenly, Naruto's neck twitched like necks do when someone's going to turn around. He huffed and his eyes moved to the other side and assumed a relaxed position with a touch of his famous "I don't care about you" attitude. But, he didn't do that on purpose, of course.

He heard a soft bump coming from the door, the hated one, and his mind was aware again of why he was there.

A black blur with a green tie and a greasy glitter cast away other thoughts or memories. His shoulders stiffened. He had been sent to the principal's office one time before- and it wasn't for making trouble of any sort (See, Sasuke was more or as smart as he looked like. When he confronted Naruto in a place dangerously public, his senses were warned and at the sight of a disciplinary entity, as to say a teacher or the principal -He would never forget that time- his lips sealed and ignored the little blond bothering him. Until now). It had been because a gloomy aura had floated around him more than usual two and a half years ago and they, the teachers, were worried about him, pretending ignorance about the subject, acting like he should be fine… But honestly-- who would be happy after your parents got divorced? Yes, he understood it was best for them to be apart but, he had the right to be a little depressed at least. They couldn't expect him to go around like his usual self, right? - On a second thought, maybe they did...

That's when his mother decided to take him, after she got that phone call, to see a psychologist. Sasuke would never _ever_ forgive his mom for sending him to see that horrifying shrink. That creepy and shinny hairless scalp and the zoo-themed tie! And… and the puppets! - Traumatizing. He fidgeted and had the sudden rush of running away. He wouldn't stand that again. He was inches from the door and the woman seemed sufficiently distracted. He just needed to stretch his arm a little and he'll be free… Regardless of those urges, his common sense stepped in. He didn't budge, not even a bit and then, he swallowed difficultly. He started to scratch the arm of his chair because he desperately needed to do something when the unexpected sound of someone's voice (guess whose) bursting into an annoying laughter forced him to turn again. He stared hatefully at Naruto, though unluckily his eyes were at the other side of his face.

The clock ticked on the wall there too and with each little sound his patience wore out… This Aiko-lady laughed again and Naruto was still talking to her. Then, he moved the wheel chair and the rusted thing creaked. Then, the tick echoed in his ears again and her nails drummed on the glass overtop of the desk. The wheelchair creaked and that goddamned tick…! He wasn't into religion, but prayed for them to stop, now.

Then, the ring of the phone was heard and Sasuke rested his head back, rather violently (God, please make them stop)… It hurt as his nape hit the wall. He had kind of forgotten the brick wall was there. The squeaky voice of the lady called the names of both teens.

"You may come in, now…" she murmured, telephone in her hand. Her palm covered the speaker. Her face assumed her primal expression after hanging up "Tsunade-sama is waiting for you."

Naruto sighed "Here I go again…" and entered the other room.

Something in Naruto's tone reminded him of his dad plus a scowl. Now, he could only hope his mom wouldn't call his dad. He moved eagerly his fingers again, they felt cold and moved awkwardly in his pockets; a deep breath and then he followed.

ô_ô//o.o//ö_ö

The first thing Sasuke noticed about the principal was her giant boobs merely held inside the grey jacket. It was too weird and he just couldn't stop gawking. He kept staring until Naruto rolled his eyes and nudged him; he blushed slightly and avoided looking at him, mostly embarrassed.

She closed wearily the files in her hands and while taking her reading glasses off, she sighed.

"So, Naruto… You've come back pretty so--…"

For the first time since the boys came into her office, she looked up.

Sasuke would've expected any kind of reactions coming from her. He pictured anything swinging from incandescent fury to total disapproval or perplexity. He even wandered if she might laugh a little if she was in a good mood. But, he had felt truthfully humiliated when she began a non-stop cackle. She had been forced to grasp the edge of her table or she'd fallen hardly onto the floor.

Brushing her tears off and holding her stomach –one hand remained in the corner of the table- she managed somehow to utter pointing at Sasuke, "Hey you boy" her body tilted to the side, she had moved her support-hand "Move your hair. Let me see it!"

His fists clenched and the corner of his lips twitched a little. Naruto's chair squeaked a little. Sasuke couldn't actually see him but despite that, he perceived his enjoyment. It was almost as effective as he was laughing directly at Sasuke's face.

Reluctantly, and his mouth continued twitching in the meantime, his pale fingers reached one of the dark locks covering his face and he moved it away.

After a lifetime, her guffaw broke into giggles and then halted completely. Sasuke checked the time in his watch. Seven minutes. Seven precious minutes of his life wasted watching that wacko making fun of them, him mainly. She cleared her throat and Sasuke had the feeling that now was time for the serious stuff.

"Well, I bet you both know why you're here… "She spotted Naruto, defying him to contradict her and the blond teen seemed to shrink. So, Tsunade continued "Now what I want is for you two to stop it. This is not the first time I've heard complains about your struggles."

Her speech stretched many minutes and it sounded like it knew no end. Sasuke's eyes flickered and he stumbled. Some scant sun beams made it through the curtains warming the place. The heavy environment affected him and soon was tougher to pay attention. He started to doze off while wishing for a chair.

Tsunade's voice reached the well-known conclusion tone. Relief invaded him and Naruto too; -he heard him sigh- that he nearly missed hearing the last phrase.

"Apologize to each other" it bluntly slipped from her mouth and it beat his faces, as it bordered the absurd.

"What?!" Naruto translated the common thought to words.

"What I said, apologize" her laced hands facing them from the desk gave the words solemnity "It's the only way you two will stop fighting"

Both boys stood motionless.

"Well?" she asked in a warning tone "Who is going first?" Sasuke knew she knew none of them would go willingly first. Her eyes moved from Naruto to Sasuke, expectantly. She finally gave up her waiting "I see… Well, then I'll choose." she smirked "You, go first!"

"Huh? Why?!" Sasuke retorted, against his common sense that cried 'You shouldn't retort the Principal, moron' "Why me?! He should do it first. It was his entire fault, anyway!"

Naruto had decided, for once in his life, to stay wisely in silence. Still he quietly growled.

"You'll go first because you asked why. That's why."

Later, when Sasuke got over her senseless reply, he looked at Naruto –that dragon lady forced him- and he murmured "Whatever, I'm sorry"

"Why you're sorry Uchiha?" her high tone implied his apologize was incomplete.

"I'm sorry that I kicked your knee and you have to use a wheelchair to move around."

"It's okay, Sasu-chan. I forgive you" a big smiled spread in Naruto's lips as Sasuke death glared at the stupid nickname. His lips muttered a hateful curse against the blonde with all the disdain that soundless words could have and Naruto snickered evilly at the sight.

"Well, now is your turn Naruto…"

"Wha-..?! I'm the victim here!" his stupid smiled disappeared and the one smiling now was Sasuke.

ó_ò

Finally, they were released. The sun was settling, the orange sunlight illuminating their figures. Black and lengthened shadows were behind them. In their minds, the fresh pleasant and utterly humiliating memories of their time in the principal's office were battling to see which were stronger.

What referred to Naruto's blond head, the bad ones were winning and were highly advantaged. It wasn't fair, the good ones were handicapped. They'd happened before.

In Sasuke's head more important things where bothering him besides that stuff. Phrases that that woman had said, like "It's Needless to say that you're both coming to detention this Saturday, right?" when they were leaving, guards off -breaking the premature relief of finally leaving that horrid office- so it would hurt more. But the particularly worst was "Your parents are already informed of your behavior," then she had glared directly at him "both of them." and she silently enjoyed the anguish in his eyes, he was sure.

Naruto peeked to his side to watch Sasuke pace. He assumed that Sasuke didn't like to walk home next to him. They couldn't do much, though. The road to their respective houses was almost the same. Naruto couldn't wait for the corner in where they got separated because the nurse couldn't borrow him the wheel chair and now he was hobbling his way home, supporting his weight on Sasuke –because walking on his own was too hard and he moved 3 meters per minute. From the corner to his home were only two minutes, walking slow and Naruto figured the ten minutes that distance would take to him alone was a million times better that to be forced to support himself in Sasuke.

Some pigeons pecking the floor flew away as they approached. The rustling of their feathers intertwined with city noises were the sound that filled the environment. They hadn't spoken once since the left the school. Well, Naruto said bye to Haruno Sakura when he spotted her taking the bus. She replied too cheerfully to Sasuke –he ignored her, to Sakura's disappointment- and then she smiled sweetly –he supposes- at him and waved. Then, the words died.

Luckily, the corner was close and after some more uncomfortable walking, they got there. Naruto removed his arm from around Sasuke's shoulders and waited for him to do the same. A crow passed over their heads and Naruto kept waiting.

"Sasuke, you can let me go now. I can walk on my own…" he uttered in a husky voice, due to not talking for fifteen minutes.

Sasuke abruptly took off his arm and it made Naruto lose his balance. He frowned at Sasuke's back "Fuck, what the hell is your problem!"

Sasuke was walking slowly to his road when he halted and looked back "Shut up for a while"

Sasuke waited and waited a second more. It was strange, nothing came. He shrugged his thought about Naruto retorting his uncommonly squeaky voice. He began his triumphal retreat, bet there was something coming.

"Hey you stop it!" he shouted and his tone was a little toner than usual. The blond was sure that the tensed school shirt's collar was hurting Sasuke's neck, since he was gripping it upwards. Naruto stared fiercely because noted he could only lift Sasuke mere few inches since he had gotten so tall in summer while he didn't, but most of it was he'd had enough with his bitchy attitude.

Maybe Sasuke would have preferred it hadn't gone that way, that his thoughts had not been so easily muffled by anger and maybe, he hadn't considered Naruto such a bother. The mid-cooling air mixed with his breath as he pushed kind of hardly –but at this point was hard to care- and he snapped.

"Have you ever thought I don't give a shit about you?" he could tell Naruto's knee was trobbing, if it had been some other time, maybe -in depths of his soul- he might have felt a little guilty. Not this time. He continued turning all his frustration on Naruto because, really, it felt as it was his entire fault. He said he was an idiot and a loser until it was hard to keep speaking "Don't look at me like I'm a bastard because I don't care about your stupid not necessarily broken leg and like I'm an inhuman smug person, okay?! I don't like you enough to care. Stop bothering me"

Then he left definitely. The lone blond was left with blue eyes blinking like crazy and a accelerating respiration. His brain processed it slowly and by the time he shouted back, quivering voice and eyes tightly shut Sasuke was too far away to hear or to take the time to come back.

But, you know what? It didn't get him. He'd never actually hoped they could be somehow like friends. He didn't care if he thought he was an idiot and/or a loser and absolute it'll never bother him he didn't give a shit about him. In fact, he was glad. He felt the same way.

His pulse still rushed and then, he decided it was best to not think about this anymore.

After that, he hobbled home all alone. He reached his home 10 minutes later than he had expected, though. His raced heart wouldn't help the cause.

Whew, finished it, finally.

I hope it wasn't too horrible and I that you enjoyed it! :3 Because that's what this is all about.

If you thought it was totally senseless or boring, you have all the right to bluntly express your feelings in the review. You can review if you liked it too… x

Sorry if there wasn't much about the pairing. and Gaara was only present in an imaginary closet and brief comments, but I'll change soon. Including those embarrassing romantic misunderstandings I live for Sasuke and Naruto. I'll get Gaara a love life as well.

That's all for now. 'Till later.

Adios! ^^

-Akiko Fujishima-


	3. Chapter 3

**--Ch. 3— To Amend**

Phew—I'm exhausted! Well, the lasting weeks before vacation are always hard, specially the very last one. Teachers always make us do all the stuff they forgot we had to do before—and I had like four exams this weeks and each one of them were terrible!

Sorry for all that rambling. That's beside the point.

Well, it's two o'clock in the morning, but I've finally finished chapter three, yay!

I don't know if this is a bunch of crap or not. But anyway, I hope you like this one :3

* * *

By the time he reached his house, the place was in complete silence. The sun was still shining, though. There were at least a couple of hours before it disappeared.

Naruto moved quietly in and left carelessly his bag in the entrance. He looked around a couple of times an rushed –as fast as his wounded leg let him- upstairs. Every little thud forced the boy to freeze in place. He checked his surroundings one more time; it was only a bird.

At the other side of the hallway a black slump slept deeply and murmured in its dreams. Good, his dad was asleep. He grabbed the handle of the closest door and walked in swiftly. He heard the little click of the door closing completely mixed with the sound of his own sigh.

In the safety of his room, his heartbeats loosened up and started to slow down, finally. He sat on the floor and the wall held the weight of his body. Naruto rolled up his leg pant –horrible black school's uniform pants- and glared the bandage awkwardly. His fingers doubted at its surface, but then they begun to softly remove the piece, bit by bit.

It was starting to itch and he supposed he actually didn't need it. The last part was off and the air felt nicely cold against his exposed knee. Also, it didn't hurt that much anymore. His lips pouted and he scowled a bit to the now uncovered bruise. Damn bastard. He had truly hit him hard. Naruto studied carefully the black and blue sphere existing in the outer side of the joint. It throbbed painfully against his finger and he stopped touching. Nonetheless, he never stopped staring at it. He wondered if that odd yellowish cream will help it heal faster.

Suddenly, a soft noise made him jump. It had been a slight squeak in fact, but his heart hasted again and beat in his eardrums. Then, he felt a little stupid for freaking out like that and that was when it happened. His father was standing at the door frame.

His dad kept in silence for a few seconds which Naruto used in a fast intent of covering the sphere. But it was too late, his dad had his 'Motherly switch' on and he knew his son was hiding something from him.

It took Naruto a lot of time –maybe some hours, because the sunset had already begun when Yondaime left his room- to convince his father. He asked him many times what had happened and just that horrible worried look wouldn't leave, even after he repeated so many times that he was okay, it was nothing, really. He had only fallen from a tree… His dad's eyebrows moved upwards as his face showed hesitation and that expression never vanished until he was out.

Naruto was finally alone again, alone and able to think things over. Right there, he wished he had something to do, anything but homework. Between these two options he chose none of the above and he tried to sit there not thinking. However, every time, those memories and the concept of what had happened found the way to slip back into his thoughts. Memories about Sasuke and the fact that he wasn't angry anymore, not even a little mad at him but he was somewhat upset; it felt weird.

At the end, he was in his desk doing his homework. He knew now for sure that biology was a lot better than to remember and think that over. It just was too strange. Better forget.

~º3º~

He checked his watch one more time. He had walked slower than normal and that fact had only delayed his arrival home ten minutes. He looked up at the highest floor of their two story brick house and searched for the right window. The lights were off, but still he could see the blurry lines of a shadow behind the curtains. He lowered his gaze and exhaled. When he looked up again, the shadow was nowhere to be seen, the curtains closed, as it had never been there in the first place.

He felt a little awkward standing like and idiot in front of his own house, but he just couldn't get enough will to grab his keys and get in.

So, some minutes and a bunch of old women whispering and pointing behind him later, Sasuke approached the door, licking his lips, still hoping for the best. He was a few inches from the door and something had started to flutter in his stomach.

Now, he was in front of the door and it seemed as all his strength had left him in a treacherous and coordinated complot. For an instant, he wondered why that day he had been so afraid of doors, a dumb, dead and unanimated object.

By the time when somewhere between his thoughts a piece of will moved his arm, the door opened all by itself. Instinctively, he bounced back slightly. He felt an evil presence and doubted. He walked quickly inside the house and the door closed after him. He watched directly to the wall, reluctant to look to his side, to the evil presence.

Said evil presence had the same eyes as him; similar black and straight hair. It, or more accurately, she, was a little smaller than him but they shared the same nose. Some of the neighbors said they also had the same hellish temper. But it was just silly gossip.

After she closed the door that hid her from him before with a hardly audible sound, the evil presence -formally known as 'Mom'- decided to raise her gaze and stare. The piercing feeling of guilt forced him to turn, face her and peer at her face, while looking down.

His mom sighted and with that sole action she said 'Yes, I'm aware of what you did.' He gulped 'And yes, I'm disappointed and you should feel guilty and ashamed.'

Then, she preferred to actually use words and she spoke, slowly, like controlling her tone "Sasuke, go to kitchen. We have to talk." Words feared by any son.

He escorted her into the gray tiled room. It was a broad place, neatly cleaned and cutely adorned with white and blue accessories mainly. She sat on one of the two little chairs arranged in a way they would be in front of the other, separated by the table so the people who used them would be face to face, no way to avoid that.

She had her hands laced over the table and simply waited for him to sit. He left his school bag on the worktop at the entrance and then sat, in front of her, face to face. For a while, the only sound in the room was the buzz of the light bulb above their heads.

"Sasuke, why did you do that?" she asked in a neutral tone and Sasuke didn't know what to say. After all the sixteen years leaving with his mom, her blunt and direct way of speaking when she was serious still worked perfectly when making him feel bad and stupid.

"He hit me first…" all of a sudden, this argument felt childish and poor. It had lost all its might and rightness from before.

"Yes, I've noticed." she answered referring the giant bruise that was, at this point, uncoverable by his hair. Sasuke remembered then, that it was stinging again. "Why did you kick that boy?"

"…" he looked away, finding it hard to support his point of view about the topic "I already told you…"

"That's not a reason."

"Then I don't know!" without prior planning, he had rose his voice and it was now an infuriated almost-scream. He hated who easy it was for her to make him lose his temper and prickle in an irritating way that faded any traces of coherence from his mind, like only mothers and annoying blond Chemistry-partners did.

Again, silence reigned in the kitchen and there was a stupid clock breaking it with its ticking here too. Unbelievable.

"There is no need to scream, Sasuke…" her pose hadn't changed, neither did her expression.

"You know what, mom?" he covered his eyes with his left hand while cursing inwardly "I really don't want to talk about this." He was tired; tired of that wacko principal and of his mother interrogatory; tired of carrying Naruto all the way to the corner—He just needed to be alone and rest from life and this day. Before finishing his line, he got up and paced frustrated to pick his bag.

"Stop right there, young man."

"What?" Sasuke tried really hard, but the irritation kept flowing in an annoyed hiss.

"That's no way of talking to your mother…"

"Yeah, whatever. I'm sorry" he rolled his eyes and part of the irritation had faded. Maybe because he thought he might have hurt her or because he noticed that if he let her say everything she wanted he could be out and upstairs, in his room, sooner.

"Sasuke, sweetie…" she hugged him softly by the back and the maddening guilt came back at full force.

"What, mom?" he murmured resignedly and waited her answer.

"I think I should take you to meet Mr. Usomaru again…"

"Wait—what?!" he released his being of the hug. It was really easy for anger to return.

"Sasuke, it's for the best…" her voice didn't falter despite being shrugged off by her beloved son.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" teenage rage at 300% "Best for who, huh?!" he took his usual defensive position at the frame of the door "I **hate **that guy and you know it!"

"But he helped you so much after the divorce…" she frowned deeply. She seemed concerned, but Sasuke couldn't care less.

"For your information, He only helped in making me feel **worse**!"

Then, he rush-stomped to the second floor as she had expected. She propped her body somewhere and crossed her arms, kind of expectantly. So, afterwards, a loud bang came from upstairs making the glassed on the window shake lightly. She scrutinized the growing darkness outside –the sunset had begun- and wondered how that door had managed to stay in one piece after all this years and many, oh so many, teenage raged door-slams. She chuckled bitterly and left the room.

~_~

By the time dusk had made everything in his room gloomier, covered by the typical melancholy of the end of the day, his cell phone rang.

Hi face, that had remained buried in a pillow for at least two hours –but he hadn't suffocated-, twitched to the right to watch the thing vibrate. He grabbed the damned thing and hung up. He returned to his prior state, but it started to ring again. He grumbled against the pillow and took the stupid thing, pressed the green button and dragged it to his ear.

He intended to let this someone calling know that he wanted to be the fuck alone; however, the masculine voice shut him up.

"Dad…?" he sat up instantly and stared a little perplexed the mattress "Yeah, I'm okay…" he drew small circles in the bed with his index finger and at the same time, he listened intently "But, dad- he hit me first!" if he hadn't been too driven by resentment he would've notice that he was using the same futile excuse from earlier and he would've notice that the feelings of inconsistency about his explanation and the sensation of idiocy were repeating. "Yes. But--...! Yes, dad… No I won't… Yeah I know" he desperately embraced the idea that probably the conversation will soon be over; but the day continued to suck and that just wasn't going to happen. His father made a quick change of subject which drove to his favorite topic: Itachi. Hooray. "Yeah, that's amazing…" he let his body rest back and let the time pass "yeah, I can't believe it too" a totally emotionless tone, hard to not notice it for everyone but his overly proud dad. "Hn, that's okay… No, I promise. By—" he tried to end it quickly before he felt worse, but something happened.

"Sasuke, Happy Birthday" the voice on the other side had interrupted him...

"Huh?" he'd interrupted him; Sasuke wasn't bothered.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you last week. I have been really busy"

"Yeah, it's okay. Thanks, dad"

"Did you like your gift?"

"Yeah, I liked it a lot" could it be that the evening was getting better?

"I'm glad…"

Sasuke could sense his father's smile and he smirked a bit too.

"Well, I have to go. I'll call you soon. Bye son."

"Bye, dad…" he left his phone carefully in his desk and peered at the book sitting in his shelf. How had his father found out he wanted it was actually a mystery. His smirk widened.

In the background, his ringtone sounded one more time. He picked the not-so-damned thing now and answered.

"Hello?"

"Well, Hi Sasuke-kun" Luck is an evasive and tricky lady.

"Kakashi?" This particular day just had to be to worst of his life "Why the hell are you calling me?" he squished his cell phone because it kind of helped him to avoid crushing it against the floor.

"Well, for your B-day, of course!"

In a moment of silence where he imaginary tortured the man he detested so much, a small crook in his brain dusted painfully against his will, hidden memories reviving. When was the last time they had exchanged words? It was before he began the school year; before he finished his senior year on junior high school. Before he turned 15 that year…

"Tough luck. You're late." His breathing hasted and each word was covered by this upcoming resentment being dangerously dragged from the place where he had concealed it "Good Bye."

"Oh, with those icy words I might freeze to death!" Kakashi chuckle sarcastically. Sasuke unconsciously tried to strangle his phone. "Don't be so cranky. Deep down, you know you wanted me to call you, for the sake of older times"

"No" he growled in a whisper.

"Yeah, whatever you say. However, the way you're killing your black-emo cell phone with your grip shows you're a little anxious. Gee, I wonder why that would happen."

"Shut up!" another hushed growl and, though Sasuke intended to loosen his grip, it just stayed that way. The poor thing was cracking into two and Sasuke's fingers didn't seem to know the word compassion. At the same time, his eyes were busy death-glaring a non existent point in the universe. His left index finder was scratching his thumb out of habit and his mouth was shut. His thoughts were a speeding mess and he just hated Kakashi for calling him emo. He was not emo! He could be a bastard sometimes –Did he called himself bastard? - But not _emo_ and Wikipedia backed up his point.

"Anyhow, I guess I can give you my present and your Birthday kiss the next time we meet" he continued speaking despite the boy's angry and unintelligible swearing buzzing against his ear, "I'll call you soon so we can arrange the day and time of our date you want so eagerly"

"What the—!" he gasped in surprise mostly to the stupidity of the man if he still thought he wanted to go out with him anywhere or that he would even allow any type of interaction between them once more "Don't you dare to call me again!"

"Then I believe we'll leave it to faith to bring us to meet, right Sasuke-kun?" the singsong tone that man used to speak that idiotic nickname disgusted him like it had done when Naruto did the same earlier. But the most annoying thing about him was how it was so obvious that man knew how -and enjoyed- irritating him, as he used to do a long time ago. Sasuke was at the verge of launching the now loathed thing through the window and he fantasized on how marvelous that was going to be that his fingers tickled.

At the end, he decided to shout at it, or more accurately, at Kakashi for he was the origin of the huge mess his life was in this moment. Everything was his fault.

"We'll never **ever **fucking meet again!" he screamed in a way it echoed in the dark walls of his room; the sky was a mush of obscure blue and stars- well, it would have been only if the lights of the city and the contamination had let them sparkle. He inhaled deeply because he wanted him to know that he would personally make sure that never ever happened, no doubt about that. He would have started doing so, but he perceived he was yelling to nobody. He had hung up, ending the conversation for a while now.

By the time he let his body fall heavily in his bed, he felt stupid for the third time in this day; fourth, thanks to Naruto. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, he decided to do none of the above because one would be creepy and because he wasn't a freaking emo.

\ò.o/

Naruto wondered why sighting the school building felt like finding Heaven- despite everything reaching the place meant.

Maybe it was because he just couldn't stand walking next to Sasuke's side to get there. If you add the delightful trip under the rising sun of this Saturday morning making all his surroundings horribly hot while that damned Helium ball flamed and shined recalling him summer was near but not near enough for him to enjoy it. It was not nice.

At the end, probably the main problem was Sasuke. He simply made everything worse. After the tiring motherly lecture from his father, he'd rambled –one quarter of his head bothered, the rest asleep- slowly to school, because there was no rush to reach Saturday's detention, right? Until a blurry dark and spiked thing came across his way.

He hardly remembered what they did after their encounter in their usual corner, but he supposed it was something like few exchanged angered glances and a hushed insult; he might have stuck his tongue out, but this would've been totally immature.

He remembered, though, trying to stroll faster, dragging his thumping leg whether it was willing to or not. But, hell—it just was too hot. He had gotten more annoyed and more angered because the stupid sun just had to warm the world like that, because he couldn't continue his fast walk due to the rising temperature and because that Bastard just kept walking next to him, pretending to be oblivious to his pain. Probably the worst was how irritatingly obvious was that Sasuke stayed by his side solely to ticking him off.

Thus, the repainted building during spring-break looked fantastic and probably it was so cold with those thick concrete walls to protect him from sun beams. They were horrible during winter when he almost frost to death, but during summer they looked like one of the most amazing things invented ever, like calculators.

They came in together and parted to opposite ways almost instantly when someone chirped 'Here's the happy couple'. He passed next to Kiba, who was there too for doing something disrespectful to a teacher. They rumors say he'd throw bread or a bone to Iruka-sensei's head.

He ignored his now former best friend because he was still not talking or being near and—the point was he kept avoiding him for something stupid. Well, Naruto was getting some weird notes and that loser had tried to hit him, but he had supposed their friendship was stronger than that, at least.

Occupying the seat in the left corner at the back, like each Saturday, Naruto closed his tired eyes. He wasn't going to sleep, really; he was just resting them a little…

He woke up after the teacher, who had the weirdest hair style –silver colored hair, spiked to one side and an eye-patch made the effect- stabbed a chalk in his forehead and gave him another detention for next week.

He looked around, forcing his eyes to focus the blurred picture the place was; and then, he saw Sasuke, at the opposite spot in the classroom. A hand placed hardly over his face and gritted teeth made his expression. He could've sworn he wanted to be swallowed by earth –or he could be having a head ache. But what does he know…?

o|||o

The disturbing part of detention began with a whisper. It wasn't that close to him, neither it was a that shocking phrase. Actually, he never quite understood them. But that voice–

He just couldn't describe the horrifying feeling of watching him stand there in the front of the crowded classroom. But, looking to the bright side, it all ended soon as he started to listen to his inner voice shouting him to get away; and now he was free to block those memories, taking out his all frustration on this old Pepsi can lying on the street.

It made a metallic sound while bouncing on the concrete. He regretted so much to have earned a detention and be called at least twice that blondie's lovebird (Gaara wasn't there). But what he regretted the most was ever thinking that staying and talk to him was a must and a good idea. But, at that moment -recent and unwanted memories were crawling back-, when he'd murmured something unintelligible he never quite understood, near his neck, he'd stiffened completely to counteract the sensation of a spinning world around him. After this, when Kakashi stopped in the front of the room and it all became violently real, he froze and at the same time, wanted to bang his head against the counter.

He half-closed his eyes focusing on the can. Later, he had stayed in the classroom despite what common sense told him. He'd had to know why the hell he was there. And Kakasi had shamelessly used as a reason that his budget was a little tight since they were moving to a bigger house; a house for two.

--but of course, he wasn't talking about Sasuke. Not like he cared, anyway. Kakashi and him were more that over and it'd probably stay like that until eternity. Also, He was oblivious to all his attempts to make him feel miserable, really and he felt pretty good hitting his Pepsi can right now.

He punted the can maybe too hard and it flew away falling at an unknown point of the park he just realized he was crossing. He felt lazy and left the Pepsi in its unknown spot in the universe.

Then, he noticed some movement and an agglomeration nearby the ice cream store. Naruto was there. He looked kind of confused and stared dully at this weird gang of five. He had seen them before—they where part of the baseball team. One of them, demanded Naruto to stop being an idiot and to remember something. That damn and reckless blondie decided to ignore them and their leader –His name was something with 'K'… Kabuto?-, who demanded him to halt in place or he'll suffer more he could tolerate. Naruto simply raised his eye-brows and didn't listen. The biggest guy there raised him from the floor –like he was that light- and pulled him back. Naruto and ice cream hit the ground. Here, tanned cheeks flushed red and it was damn notorious he was angry.

Sasuke vaguely amused watched the small blond try to beat those guys. He'd decided to leave but something in the air made him wait; an overly loud and sufficiently filled with pain –enough to broaden his eyes- groan. He turned around and ran, also because releasing his disturbance in an old Pepsi can wasn't working that well at all.

.:=x=:.

The sun was nearing midday and the heat was just terrible by the time the blond boy woke up. Some feet away, there was this seven year old girl observing him, she was a little worried because the boy with blue eyes had fainted. She felt more at ease when this other boy –he had black hair and a funny haircut- reappeared in the scene.

"You're really stupid, did you know that?" both boys were shielded from the evil sun beams by this big pine.

"Hey, he threw my Strawberry-vanilla Deluxe to the floor" she came closer to them to hear the muffled words of the cute blond boy, against his mother's orders about not moving from her side.

Minutes later, they decided to buy another ice cream. She never found out why –however she supposed it was because it was still hot and the other one, the Something Deluxe remained on the floor. Isn't she smart? She followed them not far behind and after hearing them talk, she decided they both were dummies because the kept fighting over silly stuff.

They finally sat in a bench, facing opposite sides, not looking at each other.

"I never asked for your help" the blond boy licked his ice cream.

"You'll be dead now if I hadn't helped you out."

"Whatever," his blue eyes kept moving everywhere "--Thanks anyway…" she noticed it was hard for him to be steady after that.

At the end, the talked some more about some broken leg –it supposedly was better now, or something- and other things, until their knees touched. It was only because they had sat like guys did, so their legs separated more and more. She was sure it was only a slight brush, but they flushed madly –specially the blond- and broke the contact within a second. She was certain nothing had happened but perhaps she had missed something.

After that, the blond shared his Something Deluxe with the other. For that, -probably, they hadn't noticed- they kept their heads so close that some black strands mingled with some blond spikes and it was hilarious how they tried to do this and keep their knees as far as possible at the same time.

She raised one eye brow and squinted trying to get the message of what was happening. First they were arguing and now they were sharing ice cream?

But then, the guy with the funny hairstyle tilted his head to the side, towards the blond boy—and it all made sense now.

"You guys are dating!" she stated in a strident, high-pitched yell, the one little girls use instead of speaking. But she needed to cry it out loud because this was what couples did, fight and share sweets, right?

An accusing finger pointed the 'happy couple'. She had at some moment, jumped from her hideout.

"What the f—heck?!" You couldn't tell if he was more surprised by the sudden appearance of that little demon or by the impact of her statement. By the way, Naruto purposely omitted the 'f' word. There where children in there.

The black haired boy squeezed himself against the bench in total mortification while some blue eyes twitched. His voice squeaked matching her harsh tone, as he said, "We are** not **dating!"

"But he tried to kiss you!" the accusing finger moved and aimed at Sasuke, stabbing him –metaphorically "I saw him!"

"What the **fuck **dude!" an unmanly and desperate screech (and the 'f' word, because most certainly he didn't give a shit about it at this point); now was Naruto's Accusing-finger time and he searched for anything that refuted her declaration so badly while he held his Strawberry-vanilla Deluxe with his left hand, but Sasuke looked petrified and about to explode.

Luckily for the girl, Naruto's girly cry alerted the mother of her evil daughter's disappearance and took her away before giving Sasuke a chance to react and who knows what would have happened then.

(|:3 ~Kitty with a Hat!~

Right after Naruto tossed his ice cream away, they began the long –actually short- walk home. He wasn't in the mood for ice cream anymore.

"It's all your fault" he stated half embarrassed and half annoyed for not being able to enjoy his ice cream "I can't believe that evil girl thought I was gay because of you! And what's with all that kissing stuff, huh?!"

"I never would try to kiss _you_…" there was some hidden despise on the words Naruto did not catch.

"Y'know what?" he moved his arms frantically and Sasuke looked away—there might have been a subtle hint of resentment in his eyes, but he would never admit that "I'm not sure anymore!"

"Don't tell me you believe all that stuff they say about me at school" he faced Naruto fiercely piercing those sky blue eyes.

"I—" their eye contact broke due to Naruto's incapability to avoid this little crack on the floor. Then he peered up and he doubted. For one moment, he had been so awfully convinced of it, so he'd sensed it as an elemental truth, but now— he kind of shrunk and shrugged as he answered softly, "Maybe"

"Whatever," he used such an iced tone and it resulted the same way on Naruto that his mother's lectured did on Sasuke "Believe anything you want"

The scene with Sasuke fuming and Naruto feeling a bit guilty stretched for five minutes, five long and eternal minutes. But Naruto had time to talk with himself, to stop avoiding this matter and to actually think things over. He concluded that he might as well hear the story from a more trustworthy source.

"So—" he began it slowly, to make it flow more naturally "What's up with you and Gaara?" he wasn't aware if it had worked out or not, but he was sure his pulse was racing; he liked his lips in expectation.

"If you want to know," he sighted kind of tired and watching his feet walk "We're not dating"

"So, you're not—y'know," Naruto forced with his lips to make the word come out "_that_?" his question came out fast and mildly stuttered, with a tinge of anxiety. Sasuke looked him in disbelief. Well, his plan to let it flow naturally had failed.

"No," he began to do those odd hand movements again so abruptly Sasuke's words weren't as convincing as before "I'm not" his hand went down and was buried in one of Sasuke's pockets, to Naruto's relief "and we are only friends."

"Who?"

"Me and Gaara" he added with this smug tone which denoted that in his world this was obvious and it was dumb to ask it "There isn't any kind of that romantic crap girls think there's between us. But I'm not going to stop being near Gaara because of silly and pointless gossip" Naruto took a quick glance at Sasuke and tried to ignore those envy thought that wished Kiba had some of that. Sasuke stood not walking and Naruto waited expectantly "After all, he's the only real friend I have"

Sasuke was in the middle of realizing something important about friendship and such, when Naruto's hushed voiced asked him something, "And what about me?"

"What about you?" he questioned him derogatorily, raising a brow just like the evil little girl.

"I'm your friend too"

"Like hell you are" Sasuke resumed his pace and walked past Naruto, but stopped not far away.

"Aw, c'mon!!" he heard the pavement crunch when Naruto caught up with him and in some kind of insane urge –insane according to Sasuke- that block-headed blondie put his arm around his shoulders; he had to be on his tiptoes, but he did so anyhow.

"Don't touch me—" grumpy growl.

"Don't be so cranky, 'kay?" Sasuke wasn't sure from where Naruto had taken this sudden and sheer happiness from, but he just assumed he was bipolar while he was still frowning since the touching thing "You know you'd have never told me this if you didn't trust me—a bit at least"

"Fine—," he rolled his eyes and mentally prepared himself from what was coming "you are my friend" the wind blew "and I… kind of like you, more that other people"

With those words, the yesterday's verbal assault was left behind and forgotten. The wind cooled their sweaty foreheads so they finally noted how hot the day had gotten. Naruto really missed his ice cream now.

At this point, this strange and fairly awkward atmosphere since their eyes met, sank around them and it never left. Fortunately for the teens, the corner was near and they parted soon. Maybe Naruto had blushed a tad, but he'd never admit it.

* * *

Have you seen the Shippuden? Did anyone notice some connection with a certain opening?

I'm half dead and hungry right now—probably I look like a zombie, despite I'm not fully dead yet.

.:Akiko Fujishima:.


	4. Chapter 4

--Ch. 4—Fear Clumsiness

Er—I just discovered the name of Naruto's father is Minato and not Yondaime (that means 'Fourth'). Also, I don't know much about glasses and the prescription in English, so I wrote it as best as I could—anyway, the point there was the kid wore really, really thick glasses (you'll know when this part comes).

Sorry for the delay, I've spent like at least half of the week abandoned in our new ice-cold house (It's winter here. Yeah, southern hemisphere), which was net-less until recently… So, thanks to the time moving my stuff and my mom's shoes –they are, oh so many O.o- and those useless hours, I'm very late. Sorry again x3

* * *

I don't own them (but I sure hope I did =.=). Also, I write too slowly.

Naruto arrived home around 8:54, at the moment the sky started to get darker. Minato would have scolded him –like he does all those times his only and beloved son arrives at an inappropriate time- about how many times had he told him to never walk all alone when it's getting dark and probably would have reminded him that there were evil people outside who could try to do horrible things to him; at the same time, he would have fought the urges to jump and hug him. He would have ended doing all this (including the hug and one 'I was worried about you') if his boy hadn't seen so cheerful—no, not cheerful, more like pleased with himself.

They sat together in front of the TV, munching on some cookies some minutes after Naruto's arrival.

He knew –by the loudly detailed descriptions he'd received from his son- that his kid was currently doing this Chemistry project about Global Warming and stuff. But this was not the worst part, he'd said, his partner was his friend-slash-rival –there was no other way to call it-, the obnoxious smug bastard.

He also knew their project was due to next Wednesday—being that day tomorrow. He'd heard how late they were despite all his efforts to make Sasuke work (something told him this was kind of not true, but he still loved Naruto and nodded when he told him) and they were somewhat desperate. So he'd unwillingly allowed his son to go to Sasuke's place and –he almost fainted here- stay as late as they needed.

He'd looked his silver digital minute hand on his cell phone move painfully slow until he gave up while deciding that he needed to eat butter cookies. Finally, he arrived, all flushed and a little sweaty, breathing heavily. But these things were entirely cast away with that triumphal grin and those almost too bright eyes. So, Naruto –He as well- who is correctly labeled as impulsive, spilled –grin growing wider- everything that happened in nearly one breath. Minato half-heard his growing teenage sunshine blabber about a model he'd created all by himself with very little help and this kickass video he'd edited all by himself -with no help at all this time- because he was too stupefied, filled with fatherly-pride to actually listen. When his son reached a more calmed state, he uttered something like he still felt he hadn't done enough—he did the 40% only and he wished he had done some more… Sadly, right there the glow of the TV absorbed, with his hypnotizing buzz and its worthless prime-time shows, all the words and attention.

He would regret this later. He already felt a bad parent because he never reunited enough will to lecture his son, exceeded by his sudden delight and hug-urges.

At the end, the important thing was they had finished the project fairly in time and were ready for tomorrow's presentation. After Naruto muttered animatedly unintelligible noises he went to sleep. His dad soon did the same.

:3+ .:Priest Kitty:.

"It wasn't that bad, right?" letting out shaky words Naruto turned around to face their 'Leaves –and everything alike- loving' teacher. Sasuke merely raised his brows to show that he'd heard him.

When they had gone to the front, they were so damned nervous –both tried to make this imperceptible- it was a challenge to walk straight. But this was a normal effect on this kind of things, school presentations.

At the beginning, Sasuke'd deduced that most of the student just plainly didn't care about this stuff and would search for something useful in which spend their free time instead of listening as they should. He estimated there would be hardly five or four persons who would fail on this search and would actually be watching them, each one of their faces with the word BORING plastered on them, excepting their teacher (she was included in the mere four or five people paying attention) and he felt this a something good and managed to loosen up a bit… But then, Naruto just had to be stupidly bothered about this and drag everyone's attention by yelling at them and in that moment, everyone was looking. His cravings to hurt Naruto were this close to be released.

In spite of Naruto, as the presentation began and stretched to match the designed time, they began to gradually give up and do something more fun, thankfully.

They spoke, showed the video and explained Naruto's pretty well-done model, until it was finally over. They'd asked –moved by what the other pairs had done- if there were any questions and the dull crowd never answered; relief invaded him. He might have smirked when he heard Naruto's grunt of disappointment as this occurred.

But right now, the post-relaxing time ended harshly while they faced their teacher, waiting for those few word which would determine how they did. Sasuke licked his lips and sighed one more time and looked up.

"Well, what can I say?" she placed calmly her glasses on the counter and examined the boys, noticing the suspense was killing them, especially Sasuke who probably was trying so hard to not build up any expectative about it, the project. She probably would have thought she had very cute students but as long as she lived, she'd never let herself fall into the crazy group of female teacher who adored Sasuke Uchiha. She stopped her inner rambling because she had spent two minutes holding her breath and now, Naruto seemed to be terribly tensed too "It was-" she let it linger some more as the generous person she was proud of being "-actually, quite impressive."

The Chemistry teacher took a glance of their faces when they lit up a bit as she smiled and she knew her face looked really pleased right now.

"Congrats, you get the perfect mark" she heard one of them whisper pretty confident he knew all along it would be perfect and the other make a small arrogant noise. It was short but expressed the same message. Between thoughts about teenagers lack of acting skills and their clear hypocrisy mixed with a too self-assured and smug attitude, she carried on "But I have to tell you, what I liked the most was I could notice… that both of you put a lot of yourselves on this. In other words, I can tell apart which part Naruto did from Sasuke's and how you managed to combine them, actually doing some teamwork for a change—do you know what I mean?"

Maybe they didn't get that, but nodded anyways. It felt good to receive your reward after a hard work –meaning that if she had told them they were lazy and annoying students, they would have nodded and grinned stupidly, 'cause it was good to be alive this holy day when justice existed…! Or at least Naruto would have.

She watched the blond share a short partnership moment with Sasuke, it was just a quick glance but it meant something.

The bell rang and the class prepared their stuff to leave to PE. Both teens did the same while she opened her mouth to add something else. She kind of hesitated and at the end, she never said it. She would have liked to tell Naruto that his video was so cool and all that, but it sounded so not fitting coming from her—the word 'cool', didn't it?

^_º :wink:

There were, at least, ten Narutos, the original multiplied by the facing mirrors on this weird room he was recently –five minutes ago- aware from its existence and was apparently used by the gymnastic team and ballet club; it was said there was a war for the dominance of this room between both teams, like, from ages and that one time, one gymnastic girl lost her arm in one of the many battles. But it was also said the kid who witnessed it wore this thick glasses rated at +5.75 and they were at that time resting over his night desk.

He looked at one of his many blond selves and concluded the worst part of school had to be those horrible uniforms that made him look like a kid **and** like a loser, but the most hideous had to be the ones for PE. The extremely tight short weren't even half-thigh-long and the boring school-green color crushed any chance of it being bearable. For the girls it was okay, their bodies fitted perfectly with it –it's worthy to mention they were well-aware of this, but they would never use this in a manipulative way, not at all-. Besides the revealing short, they used this simple white T-shirt; until here it was fine. However, if you included they were forced to put it _inside_ the horrible school-green shorts the story radically changed from 'endurable' to 'perturbing' and if you were a boy, like Naruto was, you'd totally understand this point as well as finding the essence of the phrase 'Leave nothing to imagination'. It was needless to add it was utterly humiliating.

Today this just wouldn't bother him, though, because the blissful flutter inside him needed something stronger to cease, similar to what happened next.

They were done with pushups and sit-ups, so they were beginning a new stage in the program, said the PE's teacher know as, Gai-sensei, the weirdo in (school) green spandex. He noted thankful, he wasn't wearing it today as the man kept talking about happiness and youth, mentioning this Lee boy every now and then until some random girl reminded him what he was supposed to tell them.

The great new stage was step aerobics and the teacher said this with such passion and bliss that it felt even more boring than what it should have been. Their examination on this consisted in making a choreography with eight different—whatever. Naruto stopped hearing the man at this point and dedicated his time to catch a glimpse at Sakura's pretty –but still odd and probably dyed- pink hair. On his left, Sasuke caught a glimpse of his new blond buddy, rather annoyed because he would never understand what he could see in _Sakura_. Well, she could be maybe, in some alternate dimension, considered not ugly or even a little pretty—but, hell… Every time Naruto intended to approach her and actually get to know her -surprisingly he was that interested- she blew the guy off with an evil screech, if she was in a good mood. Who could like someone who punches you all the time? Seriously. Well, it was one of the countless mysteries of life.

While Sasuke played with a shaggy ball of fluff, after he got tired of having Naruto blinding dumbness in his visual range because it was seriously tiring and mostly for the reason that the last thing he needed currently was to give anyone an incentive about the rumors.

Naruto and Sasuke's young wandering minds shot back to reality when they heard Gai-sensei pronounce the word 'pairs'. His dark eyes widened as he groaned inwardly how annoying it was to have **again** to do a stupid pair project –it was a lot worse because it was a choreography- and before his lips curved in order to transforms his inner displeasure to real words, something came zooming against his arm hit him really hard.

"Naruto? What the fuck?" he frowned caressing his poor arm attacked by that blonde's fist.

"Hey, be with me"

"What?" he managed to return being in an appropriate distance from Naruto, after he bounced, barely head butting him.

"In this lame step thing" Sasuke wondered why he was whispering.

"No way" he was oblivious to the blondie's falling smile and now frowning face; he found this rather funny, the sudden change and his peer looked now just like this annoying spoiled brat who lived in the house next door "The Global Warming thing was enough for me"

"Hey," he glanced at something behind him and stared intently at him "It's me or them" It was simple and short, but it made him admit -in an abrupt moment of awareness- this blondie was the best partner he could find. Also at the same time, he recognized 'them' by peering beyond Naruto's shoulder and he saw a bunch of girls looking back at him with failed attempts in looking sexy—this thing was what he feared the most and pierced his nerves to no end, but this chick with glasses and this lascivious smirk stood out, achieving excessively to do the last.

"Fine, but don't screw everything up"

He ignored Naruto, knowing he would start ranting sooner or later about it and would be pissed for a while, and got up. Trying to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do now, he wished for a moment that Gaara had been in the same class as him, group B and not A.

ºxº

Despite Naruto and Sasuke cried for the time to stop right there –however, it was more of a common sensation than an out loud sentence- it moved as it always did, perhaps an agonizing bit more quick.

It was when Naruto stumbled for the tenth time with the black useless –because it was truly and completely missing a purpose, according to Sasuke- box called 'step' that he felt sort of a panic attack. The time was up and this tensed up his guts and he almost fell into desperation. He turned around and saw the hopeless look on the fallen blond. Their stupid choreography, or whatever, sucked; it was even worse than nothing and when something is worse than nothing you know it can't suck more. Normally, he wouldn't bother to get upset for this but the truth was that, somewhere in the middle of the period, their teacher decided that it should be graded (and this was a must) moved by an abrupt –but not unexpected, even so- and very youthful boost.

The sat together in a corner, hidden by the crowd maybe hoping that this way his teacher wouldn't notice them and forget them. They waited in their corner and Naruto realized time was a bitch and kept going painfully fast now, so their forced chance to present in front of the judging people they named classmates –another youthful shake-, felt pretty imminent.

Their turn's arrival found Naruto staring at the clock, pondering about the thirty minutes that had just disappeared which had felt as ten minutes tops. Also, it found them with shattering hopes of getting through it with dignity intact.

Licking his lips in a hasty movement Naruto pushed unwillingly his body up, out of their secure corner and he hated how time seemed to go painfully slow now, bugging him cruelly, because he knew something was about to go wrong and he had this aching feeling it was going to be his fault. So, after Naruto's point was proven by crowning the whole horrible thing with his eleventh tripping in the step, they were done.

It wasn't supposed to be a great deal, creating stupid choreographies, but it was obvious now –and this truth was hitting them in the face- if they ever wanted to do this as a living, they should quit it for the world's sake; at least those were Sasuke's thoughts before Gai-sensei spoke.

"It was horrible" Sasuke rolled his eyes, knowingly "and I'm just not telling you that if I could I would put you a –10 just because I'm that nice" Naruto let out a weak stunned moan and his mind filled with thought about dumb teachers "But the worst was…" the teens shifted rather uncomfortable at his rising volume "that you didn't even smile, boys" the frame froze and Sasuke wasn't absolute sure, but he felt his face drop to the ground "That'd have given you at least a 30"

"You have to be kidding me" after the certainty that their teacher was an idiot settled on their brains, they began to wonder about the implications, what it meant they'd gotten a –not quite minus- 10 and it sucked, as their choreography.

"Don't worry kids, I have a proposition to make you" his wiggling brows perturbed Naruto and why they did, was still foggy "and if you do this right _perhaps_ I could give you a perfect score…" the man grinned and everyone who saw, felt the 'caught them' irradiating confidence.

Naruto still had this unnerving sensation and he though Sasuke probably had it too, but he kept quiet anyway.

"Well—you know recently was created a new, er—_sports_ team" he should have been glad, in fact he was, they were given another chance but somehow it still felt wrong and Gai-sensai had never been trustworthy at all. The man made a pause before adding something more, "The point is, some spare members could boost the team and they could actually participate in serious stuff, like Nationals. So, would you join to the Cheerleading Team?"

A face dropped again, but it was Naruto's this time and this is the point when the blissful flutter died, after overcoming the choreography and mortification of Sakura laughing her ass off. He, in some way, felt between the Devil and the deep blue sea. No, he actually was standing somewhere in between and yet sensed the poking sensation of Devil stabbing him in the chest—or it could be anxiety rising. It wasn't like he'd suddenly got used to good grades or anything like that, but it was more that PE was the _only _subject he had a perfect score, making him hesitate instead of rejecting outright.

On his own mind, Sasuke was past the point of the initial and instinctive reject, the reject caused not only because there were evil entities in the team (fangirls), also joining it was like threatening his own masculinity and the small chance the rumors about him –and Naruto and Gaara- would cease, preferably soon. The reason he was past it: he was just **not** ruining his always perfect grades despite this (the image of his brother might have helped this sentiment) and shrugged this unsettling thought, deciding he didn't give a damn about what people thought he was or not and about stalkers.

So, that was how Sasuke acceded and Naruto deflated not believing what he had just witnessed. Also, this was how Naruto agreed too, past the moment when he swore he heard Sasuke call him a coward.

==E (fork, LOL)

"Fuck…"

Naruto examined his surroundings looking for something soothing, noting there were a billion girls there and—were they the only boys here?

"How can they be wearing only pink if green is the uniform's official color?" he'd been glowering ever since they discovered Cheerleaders had a special way to welcome the newbie's and this 'Spontaneous Trial to Group Acceptance' sounded an alarming lot like being their bitch. Now, despite he wanted to stop frowning, it kind of got stuck in there, unperturbed.

"If you watch closely, you can see a thin, almost imperceptible green strap on their left pink sock" Naruto's features relaxed a bit at this answer and it also reminded him he was no alone in this, Sasuke was too and they shared a moment of common cause and torment "Shit, my eyes burn because of the pink overflow"

"Mine too"

So, keeping an ironic atmosphere about the situation because it was the only way to bear this evil joke, they headed towards this smaller group (thanks God!) receiving freshmen. But looking to the bright side, they'd have to be part of the team only until the end of the Nationals, during fall; they were starting summer.

.

"Now, over the shoulders"

Naruto tilted his head to get a better look of the Korean twin girls, their competence and the sole new members in the team besides them, also suffering the Acceptance Trial. They looked almost the same, but one had a Cherry flower tattoo on her lower back and he could see it because she was climbing her older sis and then sited in her shoulders. The crazy crowd cheered them and started yelling that now was the _boys _turn, the word boys was loaded with an exuberant hormone explosion. He looked back at Sasuke feeling, helpless.

He had expected the worst part of the trial would have to bring them coffee or something while awkward questions and mocking names came out freely, for the girls enjoyment. Also, he had assumed that Sasuke was going to get it harder, since Sakura _and _Ino were the provisional leaders of the group, representing the true senior leaders during the welcome. And it _did_ happen; he'd been mortally flushed at a random question from an unknown girl as Sasuke was practically raped by other fangirls and the twins suffered the same pain as Naruto. It wasn't that terrible and he wondered if Sasuke regretted getting into this now, this thought might have made him smirk.

Back to reality, Sasuke looked back at him too, now and tilted his head upwards.

"No way, you go up!" the piercing feeling of the upcoming terrible something, invaded him, again.

"You're smaller. You go up"

At the reminder of his height he pursed his lips and marched unwillingly to climb Sasuke's back.

He didn't remember how, a thing had lead to another and now they were in a daring contest, loosing and loser would have to be at the mercy of the provisional leaders, so the prospect was frightening.

Finally, after too much struggling, he sat over Sasuke's shoulders, hating every minute of the physical contact.

"Shit, stop eating ramen. You weight a ton" a hissing growl came underneath him.

"Shut it, okay? Besides, it's all muscles bastard"

Sasuke's 'Yeah, right' mixed and disappeared in the growing screams of the girls, saying it was too easy, they needed a better challenge. Answering to her subordinates pleas, Sakura ordered them to stand up over the shoulders now, trying not to be too hard on them because it was really easy, in her opinion.

Naruto had a crush on Sakura ever since Junior High School, but he kind of hated her right now and the physical contact with Sasuke and the tattooed Korean twin who lifted herself swiftly over her sister, as this was no more complicate than getting up on the ground. He hated all this.

"C'mon dobe! Stand up!" Sasuke was bound to not loosing and it wasn't because he loved to win (frightening prospect).

He began his search for anything he could use as a support, but the only thing available was Sasuke's head under those dark spikes. Naruto flattened the spikes and pushed up. Pale hands slapped his, signalizing his head hurt and each one grabbed a tanned hand. Naruto was a little shocked, because he'd never supposed the next time he held hand with someone (after what happened with Hinata) it would be a guy and probably if he hadn't been so busy trying to ascend and fulfill the dare, he'd have noticed this wasn't as unpleasant as it should be for two boys.

After a while, he felt a little proud because he was actually almost upright, he was half-way from doing it and right there, he started o freak out. First, despite how reluctant he was to accept it, Sasuke was pretty tall and he was very far away from the ground. Also, he had slim shoulders, what put him very far away from the ground with a lacking of room to stand. Second, human arms, especially Sasuke's, weren't long enough for him to go all the way up still holding his supports so he had to let them go. Third, everything was trembling under his waist to Sasuke's shoulders and it felt like a miniature and collective quake.

"Naruto, stop shaking!"

"You stop shaking!"

Both teens hand were sweaty and slippery due to their efforts to keep Naruto from using his head to give the Earth a new crater. Also, the heat was rising and the evening's air was suffocating. This caused the corresponding left hands to separate a bit, however their finger laced once again within a second and the suffocated blond with a recently-found phobia of heights, yelled without considering it much and he would regret this later, when he had time for shame because it sounded with too much double-meaning.

"Shit don't let me go, Sasuke!"

He should have considered it, or at least say 'bastard' or 'idiot' or another insulting adjective; this would've given it such a defining, different effect; probably, it wouldn't have lead to many misunderstandings if his voice hadn't trembled and then broke as he pronounced his name.

There was nothing to do now and it was worthless to consider what would have happened, it was already too late. The irregular pink circle had started cackling by now, Ino was practically on the floor, Sakura was a stone and a lonely anonymous Yaoi Follower, her perverted mind putted to work at any incriminating sings of the cherished Forbidden Love, sighed shyly in the back of the holing girls, making a mental note.

It was worthless to worry about this since they had a more urgent issue claiming for attention. Naruto's un-thought tug had destroyed the frail equilibrium between them, this was why his tremulous figure kept swinging back and forth and was about to dig the new crater, as predicted. The teen was leaning back and Sasuke yanked forward with all his might, but he forgot their hands were still sweaty and slippery. The girly giggles ended when Naruto fell. He didn't give the Earth a new crater though. He simply laid on his back, over the grass.

By the time Sasuke turned around, Naruto wasn't in the grass anymore and approached fuming incredibly fast for a guy who had just crashed against the ground. He assured himself it wasn't his fault; he did try to prevent his fall, didn't he?

"Hey you—!" Naruto was sure the worst had happened now and the only thing left was revenge, but oh he was so wrong. Well, he could tell the anecdote to his children someday in the distant future, or nieces and nephews in the cases he never had kids—wait, he needed siblings for this. Then, he would tell about it to the neighborhood's girl to make her laugh.

Then he tripped, the worst timing ever. He was just so close to Sasuke that he could see the sunshine reflected in his orbes and his eyes were actually black, not a mere dark brown. In addition to the worst timing, they were surrounded for the Gossip Queen (Ino), her minions and Sakura.

At the end, it occurred because of an unstoppable chain of mishaps. Something had stood in his way –this kind of reminded him to an Anime where there was a boy who secretly was a girl in fact, in which people slipped a lot with banana peel; it was hilarious-, they had been the exact number of inches away, Sasuke'd stepped back automatically, so Naruto's intention of grasping his shoulder in order to prevent a clash of bodies was never consumed and his hand stroke the his shirt, but kept rushing down. Basically, in their prior angle, the clash wouldn't have happened. But Sasuke had stepped back; he blamed Natural instincts.

Finally, his body pressure pushed Sasuke down and it was seated on the ground. The teens were sprawled in the middle of the circle –the twins were part of it for a while now- one on top of another, delineated eyes staring astonished, but there was a reason for it, Sasuke had his hands near the floor, placed in a way he would stop falling back. Also, Naruto had lost his opportunity to grasp something and kneeled uncomfortably between his spread legs and he couldn't believe this weird, kind of sexual leading everything had taken—and there, just there, when all the mishaps collided in one single terrible event, the last inches were lost and they kissed. It'd been a mere brush of lips, not even a full kiss but it the corner—it could be considered not a real one too. However, the damage was done and most girls have never been too fond of technicalities anyway.

Naruto, as he was supposed to do, dragged Sasuke, as far as his arms were able to, away from him, looking shocked and a bit perturbed. Even though he accomplished to fit into the status quo in this type of situations, he was still a sensitive guy. The tingle in his lips –besides ringing a bell in his messy brain- hasted his beats and fluttered non-existent butterflies somewhere in his stomach, but the only thing noticed was another; well—his cutaneous veins had always dilated easily and his face brightly blushed, this was plainly wrong according to Status Quo.

If someone watched the scene from outside the circle, it was hard to figure what was happening; by recollecting info from the tiny view-holes formed, they'll get nothing useful. Random people would only get a glimpse of mingled legs and this black haired picture that might be a girl, because the other was definitely manly and random people just needed to jump in the safest and more normally considered option. Juicy gossip was for the pretty and flashy group. But, Ino needed to be certain the random people received the correct description of the facts and yelled as loud as she could –and then cackled madly- "Holy fuck! Naruto and Sasuke just made out!"

Naruto wondered more into this ringing bell on his head and inquired in total despair –drowning more and more into ironic acceptance because it had to be an evil joke from Fate- how the hell this managed to happen _again_?

* * *

Nya—hope you liked and didn't notice –or counted- the many times I use certain words! Also, forgive the mistakes, but I wanted to try new stuff this time and maybe I got them wrong.

I'll make this quick today, I'm a little tired from all this writing. If you want, leave a review; it'll still be okay if you don't, though ó.ò (x3)

Ciao

Akiko Fujishima


	5. Chapter 5

--Ch. 5— Pending Invitation

Um, Hi. It's been a long time, huh? (Over two months =.=, ugh. My head hurts).

I'm really sorry… but there's been a lot do to lately—this includes school (I was freezing in my southern hemisphere everlasting winter x3) and personal issues. It's kind of funny who I've had to rebuild my life, which turned upside down in brief two days. Well, don't mind me… It'll just be depressing (chuckles).

Also, I had to bear my diurnal author's block. Inspiration always comes at the most unexpected times, especially when I might potentially forget my ideas (in the middle of a test and at night).

Now that I think about it, probably a lot of people forgot about this story. Oh, whatever. I had fun writing it.

Originally, it was supposed to be a long over 7,000 words chapter, but I'm too slow and it was taking a lot more than expected. Plus, cool and inspired words are avoiding me. The other half will be up for next week, I promise! Even though I have that awful Physics exam on Monday and my mental state will be correctly labeled as freaking out.

**If you want to skip ****unsubstantial and poor excuses from the author, read from this point on.**

Following the protocol, I don't own any of the characters aside from Gaara's overdramatic side, the plot and the school green uniform.

rules.

Don't keep me from learning: if I made some mistakes, please tell me.

* * *

He got up a bit late, as usual. He dressed and ate breakfast still dozing, like every day. He met with Sasuke in the usual corner –his bike was dead after a little incident that was besides the point-, following his routine.

The concrete building, which he'd discovered was not cold during summer, was getting closer.

It was a Thursday.

"Do you think they remember?"

"Only if Godzilla came and ate the Gym they would forget it"

This wasn't an encouraging response and it made Naruto's frown come back and the fact it was Thursday deepened it. Stupid Friday; stupid for being tomorrow and not yesterday. He knew if they could get a two days break before the next school day the repercussions from the approaching hell would be somewhat less painful and this was better, at the end.

The door was in front of them and Naruto reached the door "Whatever—let the torture begin"

"If you hadn't sounded so gay yesterday…"

Naruto wanted to punch him, but at the last second decided to not. Eyes met in hesitation. At the end, he pulled the door and Sasuke walked in first. As soon as they were spotted, the place froze.

He gave one small step and the sound echoed a lot louder than he remembered and maybe it had been a bad idea to arrive together, giving their mischievous minds something to wonder about—but, if they had come separated this would've probably happened anyway and they would've thought about why they were avoiding each other -because not entering together obviously meant that- or something linked to it.

He found enough will to give another step and that's when it started; casual postures being unsuitably forced after the eternal two seconds of silence, which was broken by hardly hidden whispers.

He licked his lips and his breath came out a little shaky.

"Well, I pictured something more horrible" Naruto mentioned after forcing his mind to find a bright side –if such thing existed in their position, but he truly craved for its existence.

"Yeah—and it's easier to move around" he watched Sasuke, curious "since they think we have the plague or something"

And there they were, a big mass of students pinned against the walls, doors or lockers respectively, like those creepy bug collections one of the teachers kept proudly hanging in the wall of his office.

"We should find Ino thank her for this," they were leading towards a more empty spot and he was sure, it was blessed. So, the murmurs became reversely proportional to his relief and he felt safe enough to let it be and ignore unsubtle gossiping idiots "And by 'thank' her I mean choke her with that toxic cherry perfume she soaks herself with." Three or four girls which he recognized as Cheerleading partners –one of them was the un-tattooed Korean twin- widened her eyes, scowling at him totally disgusted by his blasphemous comment towards their leader. He tried to restrain the smirk. The corners of his mouth tugged up a bit though.

"Maybe" the blonde fixed his position and peered down at the source of the reply, Sasuke (who was taking something out of his locker) grinning widely, mostly pleased because Sasuke just had technically agreed with him… "But the only one we should be thanking is you"—or perhaps he had not.

"Excuse me?" he propped himself against the cold, gray and depressing metal and throw a defying look, completely pissed off because the smug bastard lived to bother him and he had just proved it.

"If you hadn't pounded me_ again_ because you were so desperate to kiss me_ again—_" he retorted facing his backpack, specifically his Physics Text and lunch, with an unfair matter-of-fact tone.

"Hey, I was twelve and it was an accident! Another accident!" he huffed and blushed; he hated them, his sensible face veins, for making him a find-able reddish and blond point and they had no business with putting him on evidence, he thought.

"Yeah, right and you're red because you believe that"

Naruto kept looking away from him, however he was certain of what Sasuke was thinking, but he swore (not really knowing to who, because it was a loud yell in his head) it had been an accident and he was sure too that he wasn't blushing because he remember pretty well the odd tingling sensation and the awkwardness that came after it (a small thump in his ears, everything above his shoulders boiling), as he'd realized he had pretty much stole Sasuke's first kiss and that it also had been _his _first one—better to leave that discussion for another day.

"But what about you?!" he jumped and shouted at Sasuke, who rolled his eyes and added Naruto to the list of people he was currently taking no notice of, well partially because he interestedly heard some of it, just in case. "The other day when I shared my ice cream, despite I could've given you nothing, **you** tried to kiss me!" the accusatory finger aiming at Sasuke's temple "And that evil little girl saw you!"

He sighed, intending to get a grip on the patience that always seemed to find a way to slip away from his hands, maybe too effortlessly. Also he had a faint alleviation feeling and thanked genetics which didn't gave him sensitive face veins and consequently, not turning him in a red and black spot which could stand out.

A pair of green eyes –green closer to the soft pistachio and not the school's horrible tone-, followed them, somewhat apart from the world and those eyes looked intrigued and the brow that never existed rose in a mix of confusion and incredulity.

"I don't know much of this stuff, but that just sounds wrong"

Naruto noticed those words caught Sasuke just about to retort, his lips forming a small flattened circle and his tongue pressed against his palate; it wasn't like this bothered him.

"Hi Gaara" he tilted his head to the side and offered a grin since he'd never been this happy to be near him and he looked nothing near creepy today. Probably for the reason that he was the first person who he had talked with this morning (Sasuke didn't count. He'd put all the blame on him.) "So, you heard the rumors, huh?"

"Couldn't help to, actually" he moved closer and swung his hand in a shy wave and muttered what Naruto supposed was 'Morning, Sasuke'. A gang of sophomores passed by, coming to their floor only to check on the new school freaks. He heard one of them snort, soft murmuring noises and possibly one of the airheaded jerks was pointing at him; lucky him he wasn't blushing now. "So, what happened?"

"I thought you already knew" Sasuke finally got up.

"I don't trust people's objectivity about this matter" he pulled the strap of his black bag to place it more comfortably over his shoulders "I decided I should get information from a reliable source"

Sasuke kept silent as he watched the spectacle of Naruto explaining what –according to the blond- truly happened, lowering his voice when he clarified they hadn't made out, it was all Ino's scheming, evil, bitchy nature's fault. This gave him some time to think, he already knew the story (he'd been there) and he wondered. Specifically, he wondered about Gaara and since when he'd been this chatty. When it was only them, a conversation hardly ever had begun.

He came to the conclusion that to put two introvert loners together probably wasn't very productive—for the socialization issue. Afterwards, he peered at Naruto –careful to not stare for too long- and remembered the slight déjà vu sensation he'd had yesterday when the peck happened. It reminded him of something he'd blocked out cautiously so it won't slip back into his mind—that accident, the other accident, three years ago.

Also, he'd the feeling he should've been more disturbed –or at least angry- because of it. And the fact that he wasn't became more annoying than the thing itself. It was just that this might imply too many things about him that he was simply not willing to admit.

Time ran and they had to leave Gaara and get on their way to their classroom. But before, Naruto said he was eating lunch with them so he wouldn't be alone since _people_ thought they had the plague or something. Gaara agreed for him and then, the conversation died.

Ó.o

"Oh. My God! You three are like the Three Primary Colors!" Naruto let the noodles he was slurping hang there, exposed to the chilling air (despite summer, a cup of ramen would always be more hot), Sasuke blinked twice at the odd girl squealing in front of them and Gaara hid his face with one hand "Gaara that's so—o cute!"

Naruto finally swallowed the noodles and wondered about what the hell primary colors had to do with anything and why this insane girl –he noted she was a senior student- came out of nowhere to yell at them (and about colors above all).

Gaara considered jumping from the window while still plastering his hands on his face; soon he began to see tiny white sparks behind his eyelids.

He'd had a hard life. He'd just entered into high school, looking for new beginnings happening everywhere (since all freshmen weren't supposed to know anyone), only to discover this wouldn't come about since everyone knew everyone except from him; he'd been a social outcast from the beginning and had to endure the torment of being that gay kid or the creepy brow-less guy because Gaara was such a hard term to remember and to pronounce, or so it seemed to be… Or maybe it was more fun to not remember at all and call him that way when they thought he wasn't listening. Sometimes he wished he hadn't been, so he wouldn't have to confront his own rage inevitably growing inside and the fact it was so easy to move a few steps and inlay his fist in that guy's chin. In the end, he'd found a way to deal with it (Gaara, go to your happy place) and this became the only thing about himself he was utterly proud of. What's more, he'd actually gotten a friend and had an in-process blond one too by this point.

Then, why God, karma or whoever ruled the universe, had the sadistic attempt of forcing him to go through damnation by relating him to the worst person ever, the Queen of Fangirls and his big sister: Temari. The worst was Yaoi had become her lifestyle. It'd had to be someone's intention to make him gay **and** have a Yaoi fangirl as a sister because this was far beyond bad luck...

He didn't budge despite all the seconds that'd passed despite Naruto and Sasuke were waiting -for a while now- a clarifying explanation. Even if he didn't like it one bit, it was clear he knew the crazy girl. He just pressed his hands harder and hoped that if he denied her existence, she would disappear (preferably soon).

Any time now…

Twenty-seven seconds passed before anyone spoke and the weird girl was –closer to Sasuke than from the other two- still showing that irritating, beaming and characteristic smile all the devotees of the Forbidden Love had. Another while had to pass until Naruto resolved to ask Gaara who the fuck she was –and maybe, about the Primary Colors thing, 'cause he just didn't get it- since he had decided to go into a voluntary and solitary confinement in his own head. The hopes of him coming back willingly were naïve –if not stupid- expectations.

"Gaara, who's the insane chick?"

The boy sighed and opted to respond. Naruto's tone demanded an answer and even though his blood ties humiliated him (he was being such a drama queen, an inward voice exclaimed) he had to accept them someday.

"She's my sister"

"Oh" Naruto shifted uncomfortable; he'd just called Gaara's sister 'insane' and another uncommon wisdom strike told him to shut the fuck up (after his not frightening image of Gaara irrevocably shattered) or else –he didn't notice he was overreacting, though.

Sasuke, on the other side, was extremely calm. Well, it had startled him the fact that this odd fangirl jumped from behind his chair, but he had to give her some points for that 'Primary Colors' comment. Apart from its dumbness, it was a bit amusing the coincidence.

"Yes, I'm Gaara's big sis. Nice to meet you, I'm Temari" she stated, hands on her hips "—and you two must be Naruto and Sasuke" she bent down to level their gazes before continuing. Gaara had a bad feeling about this and had pretty much an idea as for why he was. His sister eyes shined with joy "I heard the news!" she patted Sasuke's shoulder reassuringly "Congratulations for your first kiss. It was about time, really" she clasped her hands over her chest "—and thanks! You earned me the eleventh Gravitation volume"

Naruto's old nervous tick came back in a wink and Sasuke felt a little sick. Both teens rejected anything that had to do with meeting looks and at the same time, they stiffened. Maybe speechless wasn't the ideal state to fall in, but you never know with this kind of girls; so, on the other hand, speechless might not have been such a bad idea.

Meanwhile, awkwardness stuffed the environment. His malevolent sister had done it again. Gaara wouldn't be too surprised if she'd acted as the driving force of the rumor's diffusion.

She examined the effect of her words on the boys and seemed quite satisfied.

Temari was just this close to finally leave them in peace, when she decided there was something else she needed to say. Sadly, Gaara smashed his forehead against the counter and didn't take notice of her remaining presence until she spoke. "Maybe it's too soon for this, but whatever. If you two want to do a threesome sometime, Gaara'll be glad to join. Okay, bye guys!"

Gaara wondered if his world was going to a painful end in that moment, but really—his world's end would be too much luck. So, the world didn't end and his now probably former friends were gawking at him, too horrified to even think. He thought if it would be so wrong to tell Naruto and Sasuke that his sister had –most probably- flared up the rumors (so they would hunt her down and choke her instead of/and Ino).

Naruto pursed his lips and blinked a few times; Sasuke hadn't moved at all. All of a sudden his chest contracted.

"IT'S NOT TRUE" Gaara jumped of his seat to emphasize this truth, almost spilling his watermelon juice; he just realized his silence was incriminatory. He barely got an eye movement from Sasuke with that sudden jump, while Naruto finished his instant ramen, deciding to ban the idea or anything related to it. And Temari walked away giggling, truly believing she had done some good today.

Nevermind. He'll get his vengeance.

Someone's Loveless manga was oh, so getting burned today!

8=.=8

It was okay, being like this. After the bad moments had vanished; they'd been blown away by the summer breeze, actually and just that alone had fixed everything. Their wandering minds had reached a pleasant state after the bitter part of acceptance –from different matters for each teen- was done, those ideas settling in after all and the June sun was reflected by the world in a way that it would glow at noon.

And three boys would walk under that light, apart from stressing school life and away from people they didn't necessary like.

They would talk about random stuff on the way to Naruto's home, because Gaara had that biology test he and Sasuke had done after lunch and it could be a great opportunity to help him, since he claimed he didn't get a thing.

Naruto thought it was okay to be like this. After enduring another 24 hours of existence, it was fine and fitting to be with friends (what else could they be?) who gave the sensation of security that they'll be there forever, even though that might not be true, it was enough.

He ignored a small Kiba version, being annoying inside his brain, because he had people worthy to be with outside and he didn't have time for back-stabbing former best friends.

He hoped the sensation wasn't just that, a general feeling not really stimulated by anything and he wished that it was true, that they wouldn't go away soon.

Who needed Kiba right now? In fact, he'd always been jealous of him. It was better to stay away and let him be—and his homophobic attitude was getting rather tiring.

He was going to keep Shikamaru, though and maybe Chouji too (although he knew nothing about the guy despite he was Shikamaru's Childhood friend and that he'd swallowed thirty bags of chips within 50 seconds once, in middle school).

Sasuke nudged his side attempting to get that dumb expression off his face and he in return questioned Sasuke's mental state or something, while Gaara would just stare quite amused, being a complete mystery because it was like him to be like that.

Small Inner Kiba hung in there for a second, but his strength abated and its presence flinched before vanishing—and probably the summer breeze swept it away towards oblivion.

(=,=)b

He'd to think hard to remember it. What was of his Fryday?

He recalled that in the morning, Sasuke –of all people- had stopped him from killing Ino. She'd been delighted in enjoying the fruit of her speech and rubbing it in his face, so he figured something like that could not be forgotten without the proper retaliation. After that, the day just vanished and was a colorful blur in his mind. Maybe he'd had for lunch a sandwich and maybe he'd said hi to someone, most likely Sakura. And then, school ended pretty quick, or so it felt, and afterwards they decided to walk home together; he recalled hearing Sasuke saying something about his mom working late and that she had his keys and Gaara mumbling a comment about it, or maybe it had been himself—he wasn't quite sure if Gaara had ever been there, for that matter- but he was completely certain the bastard was there, besides him, and he looked awesome in that stupid school uniform… not that he was paying attention to that.

He gave it a lot of thought but he still couldn't remember what he'd said; he had the feeling it hadn't been anything especially funny. What he did remember was that slight snort besides him and his head reacting to the sound by turning around to watch.

They were lucky to be out of the school because he just had stared for too long.

It happened exceptionally fast and lasted barely a few seconds, but it was the only thing he remembered clearly, it being Sasuke's laugh. Not the one full of disdain—no, a real one. The kind when you really find something funny and you can't help it but laugh. It was soft and low and greatly stunning because Naruto doubted someone had witnessed this before.

His eyes, Sasuke's eyes squinted a bit when it occurred and lowered his gaze, so the sunlight was shining in his dark locks and a hint of a genuine small smile curled his lips. Then Naruto's chest clenched for no reason and his side throbbed like hell, but that'd been Gaara poking him out of that reverie –so he'd been there after all!-; he blinked a few times and licked his lips. Meanwhile, something was fluttering somewhere, most certainly because he was noticing all that stuff he shouldn't care about.

It was nice to see Sasuke nearly smiling and somewhat happy; he couldn't help thinking that Sasuke got high with air, given that he was positively sure nothing rated as 'funny' had come out from his mouth. Still Naruto wished he could remember what it was.

Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes parsimoniously. Then, he glanced at him and the world glowed like always; however there was something special there. He just couldn't define if it was because it was Friday or something else.

At that point, Sasuke frowned oddly and snapped, politely shouting at him what the fuck was he looking at. Right there, the moment was gone.

That's when he decided he should keep this to himself. Also, he decided he just couldn't die without seeing Sasuke's real smile at least one time—possibly it was one of those things that happened once in a century. A small and muffled voice in the back of his head –that was totally out of place, he believed- added it would be cute too.

Right there, he concluded he'd been too much time exposed to Fangirly-ness because of the cheerleaders.

\(o_o)/

The holy weekend started peacefully and as all thing considered Holy by Sasuke, it was gone pretty soon as well.

Despite the fact his beautiful weekend was over, he could still get some relieve on Monday because the repercussions of those two school-free days manifested that Monday morning in the gossips dwindle. After that time, all the obsessive minds had found another scandal to spot during weekend and he was liberated from the rumors—well, not completely, but he kind of appreciated the difference.

He saw Naruto across the room.

The short blond was not alone, Shikamaru was next to him. So was some other chubby guy he couldn't identify.

Various ranting thoughts in his head which he attributed, came from his bitter self-consciousness, stated that he wasn't going to be around lunch. Thank God; he would not have to deal with Naruto's stupidity and that goofy smile today, self-consciousness told him.

He stopped watching because he didn't really care… He just took a quick glance before leaving.

So, the Naruto-less week happened to pass normally and as slowly as usual for Sasuke, except for one single event on Wednesday's evening, during lunch.

He sat outside silently next to Gaara, munching forced by unknown powers some cubed carrots because his mother was a psych and she always new if he had eaten them or had accidentally dropped his vegetables in a trash can that –fortunately- happened to be there.

He let the orange mush slid down his throat, not breathing for that way he couldn't taste the flavor. He heard some birds chirp and felt the sunny rays of the upcoming summer in his arms. He gazed at the perfectly blue and clear sky. What a terribly boring day.

He and Gaara weren't of the chatty kind, so lunch usually passed by strictly quiet. Or it was that way until the annoying Blondie joined them after he, Sasuke, threatened him of doing it or else (they'd been –and remained, back them- late with the Chemistry thing); he had to make him seat there and work a bit for a change instead of picking on him during classes.

But at the end, they never actually did any work due to Naruto's and his talkative, sunny and irresponsible personality. After that, he forced the blond to join them some more times –they were able to finish some of their work, that time- and a miracle occurred. He heard the longest phrase Gaara had ever said. Besides including subject, object and a verb it had tone and the extra information of a phrase of which Sasuke couldn't remember its name. All thanks to Naruto. He, probably the annoying blond too, had been kind of amazed.

The last days of not forced social interaction after that cheerleading 'accident' mixed with Ino's inability of keeping it shut could be added to the list.

Therefore, after some exposure to such a heavy talking for a few times lunchtime with just him and Gaara felt awfully dead.

At some point that day, the two of them started a small conversation, but it was gone a lot more easily than it came. Plus, Gaara looked a little disturbed by something. After a while, the redhead decided to open his mouth and ask him something.

He didn't reply instantly not because it was something insane to ask, but for the reason that it was surprising Gaara had actually asked someone this—and it felt a little odd. He had asked Sasuke to go to his house, (maybe, only if he wanted) to play some games, watch TV or whatever. Also he mentioned a pool and how hot the days were getting. Then, Sasuke muttered something that sounded like 'Yeah- sure…' and finished with a casual shrug. He noticed Gaara was looking around while finishing his Pepsi and then the red-headed teen added that he could ask Naruto to come too.

Sasuke reacted instinctively to the damned name of the person who gave him a fabulous pass to detention some days ago. He answered with a snort and asked him why the hell he should come too; Gaara just peered at him and took another sip of his soda.

"Well, I thought he was kind of like your friend…" when Sasuke gave him the look of 'Why the heck would you think that?', arching slightly his dark brows, the teen simply smirked and continued, "'Cause, you know, whatever the subject is, you always end up talking—or more like complaining, about him. Didn't you notice that?"

"What?! I don't do that!" Sasuke frowned and looked away with a serious angry face. Gaara merely examined his features when his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed, an action he knew it meant Sasuke was truly thinking and examining all the conversations they'd shared to find what had possibly made him get to that supposition. It was kind of funny to see—and cute, but just a bit. Then he decided he totally had to ask Naruto to come as well.

Speaking of the devil… Gaara grinned; he had seen some ducky yellow spikes passing by. He could swear he saw his friend flinched a bit in annoyance at the sight and he was sure, though Sasuke would never ever admit this even if he had to drink acid, the raven was well aware that Gaara was right and talking –or complaining- about Naruto was one of his favorite topics.

* * *

Not really a fitting ending… but I like it. =3

Hoping some reviews (including constructive feedback) and that someone can comprehend my—uh—special way of writing,

Akiko Fujishima


	6. Chapter 6

Ch. 6

**Akiko's ignorable comments:** Gaara considered a lot of stuff in this chapter… and I'm too annoyingly dependant to the word 'that'…I hate that—it! Whatever… I think this one doesn't have too many mistakes.

Well- I did say this was though as last chapter's other half. But this one ended up having more that 7,000 words. I guess I have too much to say or I ramble too much for my own sleep hours' sake. Just don't get bored! :grin:

* * *

Why. Just why.

Did Gaara have anything against him? Had he say or done something to bother him? He was almost sure he had not.

Then why did he decide to do it? To phone Naruto last Friday's night and ask him to come over to his place? After dropping his disturbing relations between facts involving him and the blond midget, it was a backstabber's doing to force him to spend one day of his weekend near Naruto. Of course, he could have rejected the idea and stayed at home reading or something—but, after all, he'd never been inside Gaara's house. Still his treacherous act was unforgivable.

He took a glance, mostly out of his new habit, at the figure besides him. Lately he'd gotten used to take no notice of these warnings that'd been resonating in his brain, because after a lot of thinking he was starting to ponder about their uselessness so he'd concluded they had not real foundation—probably, so he did just that.

His eyes darted to him, examining his locks, being all spiky and defying gravity, then they lowered to his face and those captivating scars, three on each side. Their existence was perturbing and his inward queries about why they'd got there in the first place debated silently; this wasn't enough to divert his sigh from his hideous tee though.

Tired of his own attitude, he sighed through his nose and deflected his eyes to the pavement, taking more notice of _the_ sound surrounding him—well, there were other noises, but only one managed getting to the point of absorbing any other in its total obnoxiousness.

Naruto's chatter managed to amuse him one more time, considering how long he'd been talking and how the air insufficiency –due to maybe too long sentences- was affecting his coherence—or so he thought; he wasn't really listening at all. He just didn't want to hear about the beach, his father being all stubborn, burnt broccoli, Sakura-chan (ugh, he'd cringed at that one), the Chemistry Teacher, Kiba the biggest Idiot on Earth, Shikamaru's head resembling a pineapple, Temari and primary colors—and oh some many more random topics. He just wasn't listening… much.

He squinted, trying not to focus too much on Naruto—his awfully orange tee was blinding him and he hissed, rubbing his eyes, a gesture that Naruto most likely hadn't notice since he was so into having a white ferret someday. Stupid.

Sasuke would never say this out loud but Gaara's comment had affected him in several ways. He'd felt his blood freeze as his brain had processed the information and a crunching ball had formed in his guts. Also, he would never admit this but he'd paid more attention to every conversation they'd shared to discover what the hell could have made Gaara think that. At this point, after the idea Gaara'd pointed out came to bother him, sweeping back in his mind against his intention, he'd decided that it was wrong. He ranted about everyone or anything all the time, equally and Naruto wasn't that special, really

+x_x+

He gazed for the tenth time at the clock. It read 4:37 pm.

He restrained the deep sigh he was about to let out and drummed his nails in the counter some more.

He'd told himself this many times, people tended to be late for most of their appointments. That was their common actions. However, this idea started falling apart a quarter of an hour ago—the problem was they were supposed to be here by now, but no, they were already 27 minutes late (almost half an hour)… He didn't know much about social behavior and the so-called elegant delays and such, but Jeez!

He got up from the chair and approached the window—right there, he vaguely remembered his brother telling him he shouldn't peer outside from behind the curtains, he looked like a stalking weirdo and that was scaring their neighbors. However, the memory was blurry and weak, so he tossed it without much reconsideration –also he remembered he hated their neighbors, every one of them. Particularly that American lady, Ms. Thompson who just happened to live across the street- and he approached the window, pulling back slightly the sun-faded side of the red fabric.

He checked three times each direction, though they should come from the left because he discovered it was the closest road to Naruto's house. He still inspected if they were coming from the right, one last time.

"You're not going to believe this," Gaara tried his best to hide it, because the worst thing ever was to show weakness in front to this kind of people but, his big brother had startled him. He didn't yelp at all, but Kankuro most probably had caught a glimpse of him jumping; he was evil like that "your head popping from the window is not going to make them move faster…"

Gaara let go of the curtain. Kankuro's words weren't honored with an acid reply; however it was close from being freed and damage as much as possible the taller teen's too-swollen pride. He opted for releasing his wrath in glares.

He should have told Kankuro he was a prick or a jerk; he should've told him he had horrible taste for clothes and that his make-up was more hideous than shit and he was not capturing nothing with it besides 'He's a freak, don't get near him sweetie!' looks from worried moms. Also, he should have made clear that he was fat—yeah, he was a terrible looking (because no one must ever wear that black and blue shirt with those pant, for god's sake) big pile of—did he see something move outside?

He heard his brother amused cackle and the soft thumps as he left the room.

When he was left alone, he came back to the chair he was on a while ago. Later, he moved to the one next to him when he noticed its cushion was warm after all, despite the entire time he'd been kneeled by the window; they day was supposed to get hotter, according to the weather lady.

By the time the bell rang and echoed through the house, aside from his room, he was engulfed in a fervent fight (of a PS2 game Sasuke'd leant him two month ago) against Yojimbo, pretty much indifferent to the real world and his Aeon would bring damnation upon whomever that dared to disturb him via knocking the door. Considering the self-centered attitude and the underestimating tinge in that voice, it must've been Kankuro.

"Hey baby-bro"

The door roared for Kankuro in response. Said boy considered 'What the fuck do you want?! I'M BUSY!' was the most suitable translation for that.

"Your friends arrived ten minutes ago"

_Crap._

He hoped to finish the thing off soon but the deity had been taken too lightly and he was having a hard time—perfect. Now, Yuna was dead.

Somehow he managed to skip the scene and save in the nearest save-point. He pictured Naruto and Sasuke sitting in the brown couch—no, they would be in different ones but not too far away. So instead, Naruto was in the red sofa, his back comfortably supported by the cushions and one leg swinging showing somehow his impatience and Sasuke was in the couch, arms crossed most likely pissed. Now that the game was off, he could hear muffled noises of a conversation.

Something told Gaara, while he rushed down the stairs towards his visitors, to stop right in the middle of his race and examine his reflection in the glass of a family portrait –it was one of those late XIX century style pictures, with the feathers and pompous dresses, taken in sepia tones. Its potential as a mirror exceeded the treasure-able familiar memory intention-. If they'd waited all this time (fifteen minutes at that moment) they could wait some more, he though since his hair was just sticking everywhere and it pleaded to get in place—a need no one in his family actually understood but they let him be.

He only double-checked his tee shirt, it was red and tight, resting with a casual air and carefully folded in the right places; right there, his sixth sense tingled indicating Temari's anime marathon was about to end and there was the growing chance of her appearing in the room to assault Sasuke and Naruto out of pure boredom. He'd discussed the threesome issue with her (the event had been mortifying as expected. Goal achieved there) and he guaranteed she hadn't got a thing of what he'd told her, his words literally got in through one ear and got out from the other, no further pondering on the problem was involved in the process. That coupled with her hyperactivity which followed said marathon was a combination worth of being feared.

His race was resumed and only stopped near the entrance of the living room, because he was pretty sure that looking eager and rushing inside the room was just plain lame.

One hand buried in his slim jean's lateral pocket, slight grin in his face he waited for some kind of welcome or at least complain about his delay—and his expectative crushed against the ongoing situation. Electric blue eyes were directed to nowhere, mouth pouting a bit and his face fixed in a grumpy expression. Sasuke, in a similar way, irradiated annoyance in a ten feet radio. He noted they were so hard trying to ignore the other that it backfired and made their existence's awareness between them twice stronger, which leaded to him being unnoticed and part of the furniture, if he was lucky.

"Bastard"

He sighed and wondered why the heck he'd ended up like this, a mediator in the middle of their endless war. He ruled out gloomy thoughts of being a sideshow in his own life and shrugged, internalizing some sort of acceptance—like with his sister.

"What now?" a tired note in his voice could be detected, not that his so-called friend and his in-process one took notice of this.

He should've known better, though, a question like that was bound to unleash senseless and supposedly hurting pretexts, of how Sasuke was an uptight jerk and Naruto's being a complete inconsistent hypocrite and such.

He gazed at the ceiling, a five second long stare which let out a bit of exasperation. Again, not like the loud and verbally-struggling pair noticed it. He hummed lightly and crossed his arms, then he shut them up because his patience was something probably non-existent and also because, this –despite the laid-back air of it- supposedly was an opportunity to strengthen their friendship—or something. Even if Naruto and Sasuke weren't aware of this, 'their friendship' included him as well.

But honestly, he shouldn't be bothered by it—he'd never cared if someone included him or not in the furniture before (it was happening again, though, with them leering at the other and their death wishes were equally perceptible)… Maybe it had to do with the fact that he had specific expectations for that day's evening and how things were drifting towards a radically different direction. Also, he (Gaara), someone who had never touched a frying pan before and was still pondering about wheat flour properties and uses, dared to enter the kitchen and cook something -- pancakes, actually-- since **this** was supposed to be somewhat out of the ordinary, breaking the usual routine, meet outside school and he considered being seen as a piece of furniture was pretty frustrating right now.

He blamed it all on the heavy couple therapy environment, mostly and to Kankuro.

That voice, the warning tone in the back of his mind, told him he was over-reacting again. He resumed his mediator actions sitting between them and shut them up once more, severe and ultimatum tone. He repeated his question, glaring at Sasuke when his mouth opened. It told the teen to keep his mind about Naruto to himself.

"Well?" that silence, which was hard to obtain, filled the room when he intended to get some kind of answer, of course "What happened, Naruto?"

Gaara heard him turn around, probably resting himself in the couch's arm. Naruto lowered his voice because he was calmer now and there was small pout creeping behind his tough-guy attitude. Then he spoke.

º3º

The argument was resumed and lasted enough for Gaara to notice the whole thing's futility and proceeded to ignore them for a while.

Before that, he could grasp some ideas and put them together, forming a coherent story, despite the obvious lack of sense.

Apparently, Sasuke hated bright colors because they blinded him and he thought Naruto's tee shirt reflected the light which caused him to hiss, looking all annoyed, according to Naruto and when the other boy revealed the reason behind his hiss, the blonde kid pointed out Sasuke's incapacity to get out of himself and consider that there were other colors besides black and blue, if he hadn't known that. Sasuke compared orange with pink and that liking orange was the same thing as liking pink, then he mentioned certain cheerleader team, but Naruto retorted the idea, defending pink and he carefully added (it seemed that he'd given it a lot of thought), red tongue pressing the back side of his teeth, what he'd hated of _that _was the concept, the statement those weirdos made with their uniforms.

Gaara took a moment to consider this and to consider asking them about it. Still, he concluded it had to be something related to the pinkness of the cheerleading team uniform—he'd seen _Temari_ wear that awful thing (he involuntary retched when she noticed him gazing her uniform and asked him if he wanted to wear it, since he was gay and all that) an one time was enough to be traumatized and understand Naruto's point.

He remembered Naruto licking his lips, trying to get a grasp of what had Sasuke called him, but he'd had a hard time recognizing the words and he just opened his mouth, half-way of his phrase.

"Inconsistent hypocrite?" Gaara'd offered with no hard feelings, since those words had positively been said at some point of the argument, when he'd been an underling of the coffee table. But somehow he was misunderstood. Naruto'd leered at him and his frown deepened when Sasuke smirked. After that, Gaara proceeded with his judgment of the facts. He was conscious his tone had severely changed to apologetic rather than his former I've-to-deal-with-two-insufferable-blockheads one from before.

Ten minutes and a family size bag of butter cookies later (Curiously, Sasuke and Gaara never had quite enjoyed much those creamy and sweet, but crunchy enough, pieces of heaven and it was fun how quickly they vanished, being an accusatory trail of crumbs the only proof of their existence), this issue was classified as completely stupid and they began a different subject. After checking the sky, Gaara announced that yes, there was sufficient sunlight so Naruto could swim in his pool.

Something suspiciously similar to 'Hell yeah' was heard and five seconds later he and Sasuke found Naruto striping his orange garment in the hallway, near Gaara's room. Sasuke prodded with his toe the suspicious item lying in the carpet. It had lost all its controversial glory.

With an absent-minded shrug he picked the orange thing, intending to give it back to its owner. He crossed the ancient wooden threshold and Sasuke just followed.

Next to the formerly white closet, which had lost all the color after seventeen ten years of childish, pre-pubent and teenage abuse and had acquired a pale yellowish color, coated with disorganized posters; right there, near to this amorphous object (that Gaara liked to call a coat stand) with the blondeness of his head to close to it that it might cause future slight concussions, stood Naruto. With his tee still in Gaara's possession, his bare back was exposed; perfectly tanned, somewhat slim but just enough and with a soft curve some inches beneath his ribcage; the marked line of his back ended in tartan boxer and lower, halfway down jeans stood, supported right in the middle of his ass.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?!"

His eyes whipped back to Naruto's fierce eyes and Gaara couldn't believe he'd been caught checking the blondie's butt and, consequently, his lips opened and closed (like a carp) failing to generate any sort of noise besides stuttering grunts. And while Naruto shoveled him out from his room, alongside Sasuke (he was suspiciously quiet at that moment) he couldn't believe he had been checking him out in the first place.

But this didn't keep Gaara from reacting, even if it was late and the door had already been slammed against his nose.

"You know that even though I'm gay I won't rape you, don't you?" he commented to the door. Half his brain encouraged this pissed off and sarcastic attitude, about three quarters of the other half shouted and pointed out the fact he though Naruto's back was smashing, adding the contradictory element of his behavior, and the remaining quarter of the other half of his brain, decided to take an spectator and attentive posture.

"No, it's not…! It's not about that…" Naruto's voice was kind of hushed by the wood but clear enough to notice he was very close to it "It's just that, uh—never mind. It'll take just a second"

Gaara huffed soundly and inhaled deeply, hand on his hip and eyes rolling.

Then, he noted something shifting uncomfortably at his side. That was when all the antagonistic parts of his brain hushed in perfect synchrony.

Sasuke stood next to him, frowning deeply and gazing down; apparently his sneakers were the best thing to look at and retreating from the door, he rested himself somewhere else after he huffed as he'd done before. His eyes immediately darted somewhere far away from the door.

With that and taking advantage of the other's silence, the observing quarter took the leads of his thoughts and it occurred to Gaara, in a completely unexpected and sudden epiphany –that left him with his mouth round like a circle-, that maybe Naruto hadn't been talking about _him_ (It was kind of sad too, since that meant he'd been ignored again). He was talking about--Sasuke? .

It might have been at that moment when his sixth sense started tingling again. Or perhaps it might have been when Naruto almost emptied his pool with a cannon ball dive and they barely dodged the wave of water with chlorine. The point is that it tingled, not because Temari's threatening existence was in the surroundings, it was in an unusual way. He watched Naruto, laughing and drowning at the same time -due to his first action-, peering to his side to observe Sasuke curse.

And between his own thoughts and swears, this tingling rose and he had an odd premonition—and the strangest was that it made sense, in its own weird way. But of course, this was going to die with him and there was no way he'd manage to stay alive if he said it out loud right there and then, with both of the teens involved present and very able to assassinate.

o(-///-)o

The overwhelming heat had ceased and had dropped to a mild summer-like temperature; the mood had calmed down as well and bit by bit, the situation was getting closer to his ideal scenario. Also, it was rewarding somehow to see Naruto and Sasuke approach a friendly state—their endless struggle was still alive and latent, but in a different way and there wasn't any hurtful attacks. But examining this objectively, hoping for them to disappear was just stupid… That would ruin the thrilling (meaning: laughable and amusing) friends-slash-foes touch in their relationship and that was boring.

It was nearly half past six and the world was glowing again and Gaara thought that being with two friends (he'd assumed that by now Naruto was fully his friend, the process was complete) spending a nice amount of quality time was probably a good thing and that his living room bathed by afternoon's sunshine was a fantastic place to be. He told himself he was overreacting again, having all this cheesy assumptions, but the world felt kind of perfect –not entirely, there were wars, hunger and cheerleader still roaming somewhere- at 6:32 pm, with Naruto telling the lamest joke ever and bare-chested (somehow his orange tee had been thrown to the pool after the 'well-received' splashing session; but this was nothing like revenge), Sasuke praising him in his own unique way for the pancakes and him practicing his not-false-at-all modesty, because really, baking them was a piece of cake and he hadn't hurt his own pride asking annoying big brothers (yes, Kankuro) how to make pancakes.

Everything was fine and according to plan. There had not been mayor mishaps and it truly seemed and felt as it had worked out and life was amazing. Just for a second...

Too bad good things never last long.

"Well, hi my sweeties—and Gaara!" the tone was a tad lower than normal girly voices, yet it had that distinctive ring on it showing it belonged to a female. Three pair of eyes darted towards the source of the noise and it should be appreciated that their timing was perfect and their expression of horror matched "It's nice to see you here!"

_Shit—! Fuck no! Make her leave or be swallowed by earth before it's too late!_

"Temari. Leave. Now." Also it was sad, besides frustrating, that little brother's power to threaten was powerless and pathetically neglected by older sisters.

"Hey, you blondie…"

The equally powerless and inhibited blond teen licked his lips, tense and cautious, and his fingers fidgeted in the spot where the hem of his tee shirt should've been "Me?"

"No, to the blond besides you…" fortunately, Temari was too busy rolling his eyes to see Naruto almost turn around, stopping himself in the middle of it when he had detected the sarcasm and noticed he and Gaara's sisters where the only blonds there (and that she was most surely not talking about herself) "Of course I'm talking to you, dummy! Listen; let me give you some totally serious advice" Naruto blinked once "Watch your back. I saw those two checking you out _a lot_ two seconds ago. I mean like shameless, devouring stares; but who could blame them with those awesome abs of yours."

Naruto halted, even his breathing stopped for a moment (or so it seemed) when his eyes focused on Sasuke, but his vital functions were resumed and he hurried, twisting to every direction, desperate to find something. Then, he picked the largest cushion he could find and almost stabbed it against his chest, Gaara was surprised it hadn't pierced him. Across him, Sasuke had his elbows propped on their respective knee and his head had plopped over his palms.

"Temari, can I talk to you, like _**now**_?" Gaara's jaw was settled and tight as he whispered (or roared, the same thing) to his not really dear sister. At some point, he'd jumped from his seat and grabbed her arm; but at that precise moment, he was in the process of dragging and pushing certain hated someone to the kitchen, despite he'd actually done a question, all her big sister complaints had no effect against his little brother power to ignore.

"Ow—shit! Gaara, let go! It fuckin' hurts!"

He kept his grasp hard in her arm, not really caring if her arm was losing sensitivity or that her veins were about to burst, until they reached the furthest corner in the kitchen and he was strategically positioned, blocking her way to the door and possible escape route. Temari's spat several swears, showing her dexterity at combining them in different order to enhance their potency. Also, they were complemented by those dark glowers and wounding glares that she always used just for him.

Good; the sugar coated devil was finally showing her true face.

"Gaara, what the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?" she rubbed and petted her sore arm and it had gained a surprisingly bright red color, favored by her paleness.

"I'm sorry, did you ask what's wrong with _me_?" his green eyes and their distinctive pistachio glint –very much as hers- redirected from idly inspecting his nails, quickly and heavy, towards her "Well, the thing is that I think that question should be directed to **you**!" his lips were pursed and his arms tensed against his carefully positioned clothes (which weren't reflecting the time spent arranging them any longer) in a way that wasn't scary, but it was close enough to shock Temari "Could you _please_ leave me and my friends live in peace, well _friend_ since thanks to you Naruto would probably never speak to me again, too afraid that I might tackle him into the Janitor's closet when he's not looking!"

First of all, Temari wasn't too fond of being startled, especially by his small brother (both of them), but she was (proud of being) a clever person and she knew she couldn't just shrug it off this time.

"Please don't tell me you're still mad about that threesome thing… I was kidding" she seized her surroundings, still grasping small but intense desires to get out of it with the less emotional involvement "It was. Just. A joke. Comprende?" She propped slowly her body against the cold tiled wall, this gave her preciously sufficient time to discover that yes, his brother had thought this through and she was completely cornered and her only escape routes were the air vent and that old and rusty small window near the roof. Her eyes narrowed.

"Don't use your sarcastic Spanish crap on me! I'm not in the mood!" Actually, he'd never been—but that was a mere technicality (most girls didn't get them anyway) and he had other priorities over explaining this to her "And, yeah. I'm still freaking mad about that threesome thing and I can't believe you thought I'll ever be okay with it!" when he finished, he noticed his heart was racing and his breathing was dangerously shaking "_Anyone _with two brain cells would get that…! And anyone with **one** brain cell would now that when someone is trying to make his buddies, male buddies, be not so uncomfortable about his homosexuality you shouldn't make stupid jokes about gay orgies including them—!" he gave himself a second to recover and inhale harshly "—because that's just fucking EVIL!"

Secondly, Temari was not too fond of being left speechless, especially from Gaara. However, there wasn't much her mind could do since she was—well, speechless.

When her eyes lowered though, her voice and words came back to her.

"You're overreacting"

"What?! How can yo—I can't… You know what? This is pointless. You'll never get it." His voice dropped a few decibels, gradually until he was whispering to the floor.

Temari though this settled it and proceeded to leave, but right there, when she had already passed him, Gaara said something that had an amazing power to make her halt and be speechless again. And the timing, their position and everything coincided magically, like in one of those tear-jerking drama movies.

"The saddest thing of all this is I really thought you would get it. My biggest relief before I—_came out_… was that I really thought that because you liked yaoi so much, you'll make everything better and be… _supportive_; make what'll come next less of an inferno"

_But she hadn't._

She could picture it -although it was pretty blurry- the camera facing Gaara emotionless expression as he talked and then, at the end of his speech, it focused in her face because they shouldn't miss any trace of her pathetic and guilty reaction; just like in a movie.

_She'd made it all worse…_

Gaara never actually finished, in fact he didn't need to, though. His statement was floating in the air and she nearly choked with it—but that was her breathing being shaky.

The silence was filled by muffled chatting noises coming from the other room.

At least but not the least, Temari wasn't fond of showing any kind of affection, especially when it involved a member of their family (but this was the only common denominator between them) and she had a strict no-hugs policy. Still, she silently approached and laced her arms around Gaara; this was her own way to apologize.

"You know what? I'm gonna be very busy, so probably you won't see me until nine" her arms had returned to hang limp against her body and she backed a bit "And I promise to make this a reality and behave from now on…" Gaara's depressed face seemed to cheer up from behind "But—you must do a little tiny favor for me!" his shoulder stiffened, tired acceptance was let out in a sigh that lifted and dropped them a few inches "Well, _someone_ that I'm interested in is coming here today… to study algebra or something and I though it'll be polite to have something delicious to give him when he arrives and—would you go to the convenience store and get me some bonbons… Filled with sugar-less strawberry deliciousness? Those ones with a blue rose in the logo?"

"Yeah, why not?—but you pay for them"

"Fifty-fifty" she was a bit low in cash after a mad Saturday of manga shopping.

"Eighty-twenty, you and me respectively and that's my last offer."

"Fine! But you better come back with those and no others or you pay for everything."

With the understanding and the errands said, also with a lifetime's worth of emotional involvement she walked around the house, stopping in front of the door with a Junjou Romantica poster. Once inside, her body falling messed with the coverlet, wrinkling it everywhere. Fuck, she was so worn out.

o(=_=')o

After Gaara dived in the kitchen with the Devil with four piggy tails, an awkward tension intoxicated the air. It didn't feel as horrible as the other times though. One of them pondered it was because they were getting used to feel exposed. The other though it was because they were out from school, away and protected from Ino and her diabolic rumor-spreaders; either way, they didn't feel so uncomfortable and, besides the fact that it was kind nice to feel less bad, on the other hand, it was kind of disrupting. But no one gave too much thought to this.

Naruto, for example, was so fantastically ignoring it that he had time to wonder. He was thankful too; he was still very capable of formulation words, sentences—questions, for that matter, and he had an increasing amount of them.

"What the fuck did she mean?" it wasn't an elaborated question, but it was clear enough and represented his emotions at the same time. Of course, he completed it with a frown.

"Holy fuck, Naruto. She's a _fangirl_…and from _that_ genre. You can't just believe what she says." Sasuke got up from his chair and let himself fall next to the blond, picking one of the pockys Naruto was monopolizing.

"True" he leaned forward to grab a crunchy chocolate-covered stick too and used this instance to move the box away from Sasuke and therefore, closer to him. "That means you weren't—?"

"I wasn't"

"And that you aren't ga—?"

"I'm not"

"Good." He bit the head, where the chocolate had concentrated, forming a tempting brown knob. With no means to take this conversation further, not that he wanted (and he was sure Sasuke wouldn't like that either), he formulated another question, "So, what have you been doing lately?"

"Not much—I was forced to go to buy a new set of towels with my mom, I was threatened by Kabuto twice…" his exasperated face made Naruto grin (he almost regretted moving the pockys away. _Almost_). Kabuto and his gang were such a bunch of idiots. "Also some random girl gave me this exceptionally corny letter, Haruno stalked me again, and I finished my new book and I didn't forget to have a dull week. That's about it. You?"

"Something like that, despite the fact that I don't get corny letters from random girls and Sakura-chan didn't stalk me." He made sure to add a noticeable bitter tinge to his words.

"Probably it was the other way around." the protesting reaction from Naruto echoed through the room; Sasuke couldn't say he wasn't expecting or that he didn't enjoy this— it was kind of funny "I can't see what you like of her…"

"Like about everything?" that question/answer was suitably ambiguous for Sasuke to rise a single brow, pointing to Naruto that he still didn't get what could he possibly make him adore the dirt she walked over. On his side, Naruto sighed in disbelief and proceeded to precise his point and make it clear for him "Well—there's something about her that just _glows_, you know?"

"Not really"

"It's just that her smile is so bright and honest… and her hair really fascinates me to no end" Naruto stood still for about eight seconds in an auto-induced fantasy about green eyed girls with pink hair.

Sasuke cautiously inspected his goofy grin to calculate which level of annoyance he could get from him if he burst it. It was truly promising "It's probably fake."

Watch Naruto's eyes dart back violently to reality was quite a show and this was the real fascinating thing; his blue eyes round at first only to become beaming azure slits, a frown settling in his features and his lips pursed.

"It's not fake! It's pure and natural!"

"You talk like you know."

"I do. She told me." Naruto stated this proudly, half of a pocky sticking out from his mouth and oscillating up and down as he spoke.

"Why?" Sasuke noticed he'd been slipping down, quietly, bit by bit, and now the part at which his back ended and his ass began was located at the edge of the couch. Naruto was in a similar position, but had one foot casually propped in the coffee table.

"I asked" Naruto crossed his right arm over his bare chest and leaned to his left to face Sasuke. The pocky (less than half was intact by this point) nearly brushing his cheek.

Meanwhile, Sasuke wasn't sure if to call Naruto 'brave' or 'the biggest idiot ever'; he was leaning for the seconds, but didn't say a thing and let the blond continue.

"I asked her and she told me it was natural"

"Don't you mean 'she yelled it at me with an ungodly and creepy dragon-lady like roar' or something like that?"

"No—well, yes. But that's not the point."

"She punched you, didn't she?" he used his as-a-matter-of-fact tone.

Naruto simply rubbed the lower area of his abdomen because, as a matter of fact, she had punched him and very hard; Sasuke still didn't get why he liked her.

Something was about to be added, but a loud growl, kind of terrifying stopped all that. Nothing was very clear, but the word 'Evil' had been easily identified. Nothing was commented about it, though. After all, it was none of their business.

"So—what else have you been doing?" Sasuke figured it was his turn to start a conversation.

"Let me see… I've been ignoring Kiba's attempts to apologize and now, I and Shikamaru started to eat lunch with Chouji…" the last tad of the snack disappeared and Naruto lazily licked his lips, frowning when he'd mentioned Kiba. Both of his arms were crossed against his tanned chest.

"Cool." What a boring reply, but what else could he say? 'Hey Naruto, lunch hour is the most boring thing ever since it's just me and Gaara. Eat with us again, please'? Not in a million years. One of his hands rested peacefully over his belly, his right hand was over the couch.

"Aww—don't tell me you're jealous of Chouji" he playfully mocked him and worn out his patience.

"I'm not jealous…"

"I see. You're in denial. Don't worry man" There was a smirk inevitably curving his lips, he could _hear _it in his singsong tone. "Seeing that I'm overly needed over there, I think I might drop in sometime… Maybe, you two could come over with us and we can eat always together—" and maybe, it'd be nice. The more the merrier, they say. Naruto stared longingly at a random nonexistence point of the universe, too lost in his own thoughts to actually see anything.

But Sasuke new better, he could read between lines and that's why it came clear to him.

"Hey dobe, you don't need to make up excuses to be with us."

It was a simple phrase; it shouldn't have been a big deal. But it was; those words put in that order and said out loud held something resembling a meaning hidden in their core to Naruto, or so it seemed. Or they wouldn't have toned down his smile, his body squirming over the large fluffy cushions to loll and put all his weight on his side, to get a better look of Sasuke's face. If they hadn't meant something, he wouldn't have thrown that perplexed look.

Naruto was on his side, being puzzled, so maybe that was the reason he gave in and stopped paying attention to his limbs. That was why one of his hands slipped and Sasuke was so close it couldn't be avoided at this point—

It was an innocent touch and it shouldn't have meant a thing, pretty much like Sasuke's words just shouldn't have as well. But it did; all of them did and boys panicked so easily.

Both hands where jerked back to their owners because that soft touch of index and thumb that was supposed to mean nothing had surely made said fingers tingle and feeling was spreading on its own accord.

(But it had probably been that they'd charged and became two livings ions, eager to exchange electrons—those damned silky and fluffy cushions!)

Nonetheless, this little theory hadn't spent too much time in their minds to become believable when Gaara came in. So, when he asked them if they wanted to join him in his small trip to the convenience store, they just agreed, not totally focused on where they were going, but they needed the distraction.

Gaara wasn't the only one who tended to overreact.

Naruto got up trying to be nonchalant, but his muscles were in a strange combination of sluggish and eagerness—simulate to be stretching was his amazing and effective disguise of his legs inept bending.

He measured his distance between Sasuke and his hands; looking elsewhere was a must (which was kind of hard, since he was paying a lot of attention to Sasuke's position and intending to stare at the ceiling meanwhile—but not too much). Busy with this, he bumped in a wall and after that, there was little click indicating the door was open. Faintly, as he inspect his contusion, he wandered why no one was moving; the door was open and a gentle breeze was caressing his bare back (he needed to get back his tee…), he looked up and in the entrance there was a pineapple.

Well, not actually a _pineapple_, but its representation… in a hairstyle—Shikamaru's brown and fruit-like hairstyle. His hand traced casually the back of his head, absolutely oblivious that someone besides Gaara was watching him.

"Hey, it's Temari he—re…?" his entire person cringed slightly and Naruto sensed his vast possibilities and the situation's potential to mock and it was beautiful "N-Naruto? (And Sasuke too?) What're you doing here?"

"Visiting a friend… and you?" Naruto was very busy torturing Shikamaru, but certain redhead dazzled his mom's favorite rubber plant with his hopeful and shinning eyes (He'd been called _friend! _Yay!— the girliness of the internal yell was just a small tiny, ignorable detail)

"Er—uh, I think I got the wrong directio—"

"Shika-shika! You're finally here! What took you so long?"

"Ugh—hi" his unsettled face was terrible, something to take seriously, so Naruto didn't laugh—much. Well, he almost exploded "Why god? Why you made her with such a bad timing?" he murmured resigned to his fate.

Probably Gaara enjoyed the presence of the diversion for her sister more than anyone.

Naruto noted, when Temari laced their hands to guide the poor algebra mate/prisoner somewhere, that there was a soft smile waving her lips, nothing like the other full of creepy fangirly-ness excitement, and maybe there was hint of joy in her eyes.

His profound analysis didn't prevent him to cackle until his friend's shadows vanished in the depths of the house and his desperation.

6_6

The dirt swirled around Naruto's jeans, tiny specs floating and then, resting unwanted over his shoe when he moved it forward. It was a pitiful way of distracting himself.

Ten minutes ago, Gaara had gone inside the shop. The name of it was unreadable but the discolored plastic sign had been of a bright cherry red once—or so Gaara said. The merchandise was neatly ordered -alphabetically and by colors- behind the shop window Naruto was leaning on, staining his blurry reflection with a mix of gray and many happy candy tones.

He slowly moistened his lips— they were a bit dry and about to split. There was something disturbing him too, and that feeling bothered to creep all the way from his belly to his throat to show him that he wanted—no, he needed to say something. But this urgency was making him far more nervous than what he thought was required.

"Sasuke…?" he started with a whisper and a quiet tone to create a non-aggressive situation and that never worked with Sasuke anyway.

"What?" he noted his voice sounded lethargic; he was falling in the late-summer's evening drowsiness.

"You know, I've been thinking about…something." Sasuke's silence was encouraging him to carry on, but this didn't feel such a great idea anymore. He frowned at the world when the disturbing lump climbed his esophagus once more, burning it this time; direct and clear warning that he should keep talking, dammit! "I've been thinking about all the stuff that has happened between us."

"What do you mean?" Sasuke tapped the frontal part of his right heel in the concrete. Most of him was aware of his phony effort to pretend he was free of those memories engraved somewhere inside his head and he also was aware Naruto knew it.

"I mean what just happened at Gaara's place and—" this was the worst time for his squeaky voice to brake. He mentally prepared his vocal cords to say the following and to (for Christ's sake) behave, no more high-pitched disgraces, please. "—and the kiss—kisses, both of them"

"Stop right there! It wasn't, I repeat, It was _not_ a kiss. Those weren't kisses!" he halted and relaxed his scowl, eyes lost and roasting like they should when one stares at the sun, to add "Those where accidental, slight, unplanned and unwanted almost non-existent lips brushes. That's all. Meaning: mere accidents. You said that yourself"

"Whatever, accidents or not I think we should, maybe, talk about them"

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"They didn't mean a thing. Why talk about meaningless and random accidents?" Sasuke devoted 0.01 seconds for Naruto's open mouth ready to retort and subsequently he interrupted his action "The answer you're looking for in no, there's no need."

"So we just don't discuss this, right?" almost at the limit of his visual field, the taller teen nodded once "and we ignore them too?" another undeniable and determining nod. "Fine…"

"Good"

He struggled to convince his annoying urges this was for the best, that Sasuke had a strong point. He really tried, but the disturbance opted to sink and nest somewhere below his stomach, heavy and accompanied with inane disappointment.

But in all honesty, there were many uncomfortable issues to muse of –like homework, crazy fangirls and torturing cheerleaders- and they had a lot of time. What was the rush? That was what his brain told the lump anyway.

Half of a minute later, the inner door bell chimed signalizing Gaara'd come out in a hurrying redhead and chocolate box mess. He resembled a bunny struck by anti-mist car light with his eyes lost and blank, cheeks blushing into unexpected pink. Naruto nudged Sasuke, sharing their common moment of awkward inquiry. A hand was waved on front of the green and delineated roundness's.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Dunno—and his face is all red"

Curiosity alerted Naruto that he might find something interesting if he inspected the shop, he bit his tongue and turned around.

And he saw it, besides the dusty window, a long brown hair, impossibly lilac eyes and that authoritarian air which pointed out that he didn't belong there: Neji Hyuuga. The reasons why the smug sophomore, son of the richest people in town, the billionare with superiority-complex was attending a candy store were hazy.

"Woa, it's Neji!" Naruto trampled and plastered his face in the glass.

"Neji Hyuuga? Really? Didn't you confuse him with someone else?" the pebbles lying scattered in the floor crunched under his weight. He placed both hands in the glass, his face remaining at a proper distance.

"No, I'm positive! It's him."

Meanwhile, Gaara gaped still in his own tiny world.

"But isn't he supposed to be like shamelessly rich?" Sasuke looked to his side and a few inches down, at his eyes. The intense blue mixed with the sunset formed a brilliant violet tone.

"Yes he is…"

"That's something you don't see every day…"

"Yeah"

"I heard they own a heliport."

"Not really, they wanted to build one but his mom opposed to cut a part of the woods in their residence…" Sasuke had that 'How do you know that?' stare, but he opted for silence and shrug and it said bluntly 'I don't want to talk about it'.

When the excitement at the flashy news drowned off, there was finally a time to afternoon noises to be listened; several, but stifled traffic sounds, the electrical buzz on the streetlight turning on, stealthy footsteps which sounded amazingly like Gaara running away, leaving them musing the reasons and possibilities of Neji—wait.

They turned around to chase down Gaara darkening figure.

The only thing the boy in question gave as an explanation was a mumbled 'Don't you think it's like too hot right now?'… Not a fitting explanation and Naruto had to bite back his own shivers to not contradict him. It was summer, but the night's always had that chilling charm that frost his bones… He missed his brown hoodie.

9_9

"Maybe he trampled over a shelf and made huge mess…" his index was positioned over his chin and he taped it.

"No, we would've heard that… Honestly."

"Okay, okay—I know!" the smaller teenager stood in front of the taller one, hands open and anxious to explain his new (probably ridiculous) theory "He was caught shop-lifting!"

"What?" the other boy kept moving, pale hand hiding his face "Gaara, shop-lifting. Seriously?"

Sasuke paused just enough to grunt, making a double effort at hiding his face—his lips and the fact that he was smiling, this close to laugh. But he didn't want to get stared at again by intense blue eyes, evidencing that he was so out of character.

"Then what do you suggest?" pouting to his empty left-hand side, eyes glinting because they were getting near a street light (The night's fall had caught them in the middle of their trip. His dad was going to kill him for coming home this late or worse! He could annul his rights over the TV and this was linked to his videogames permissions-- as in 2007 summer. That had been a vile act). Unconsciously, his pace hasted.

"Anything but _that_."

"What the—freaking bastard!" Naruto chuckled somewhat bothered and mock-pushed him away with his elbow. It was too cold to expose his hands and leave them at the mercy of the absence of heat.

They reached the corner faster than expected. It kind of felt they almost crashed against the gray wall. They shared mutual farewells and they were supposed to part in that moment. His lump of discomfort also was supposed to be resting inactive and momentarily under control, but it just wasn't.

Lately, a lot of assumption that were void to happen (supposedly), hadn't. However, that's the funny thing about suppositions: they could or couldn't come true. He left out a chocked noise and it was a lot lauder, unintentional and painfully squeaky than how he'd planned it. Sasuke reacted to it and didn't budge, scrutinizing his features.

Forced by hazy haunting memories, they shared one last and equally confused glare that wasn't supposed to happen and it sucked that it had a lot more meaning that expected. It was like all the recent events, the ones that were supposed to be buried deep and away, were unleashed to bother them.

Their shared moment lingered two more seconds and it was cut by Sasuke, who left first. Naruto soon did the same.

His blond head blamed the corner for all this awkward shit edging romanticism (Ugh)—it was most possibly cursed…by Ino.

* * *

I'm sorry lately I've been writing too much about Gaara. (I can't help it. I love his browless grief-stricken existence)

Congrats to you if you read the whole thing and a shinny medal if you enjoyed it.

Atte,

Akiko Fujishima, former zombie.

P.S: This was due last week, but things happened. It was finished at Monday 12th, 2:34 am and that's technically still Sunday. Then, I revised it one time and it sucked a bit and it lacked a lot of things. I had to fix it properly.

P.P.S: Thanks to all the amazing people who favorited this story. =3


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